Rejoicing in each other’s presence

I haven't been to a football game in years. Not that I was ever a big fan, but for a long time (more or less throughout my childhood) football was the territory through which to experience my relationship with my father. I remember very well—I must have been 6 or 7 years old—the evenings spent on the sidelines watching him play. At that time, he was a former player lent to amateurism, to five-a-side football with friends, and to the after-work gathering. Family legends told of a wasted talent whose face had even come out in a local newspaper—the yellowing clipping is kept in one of the tin boxes in which we file, to this day, the traces of our family history. As I followed my father's figure with my eyes and watched the gestures of the jerky bodies, the excited tone of voices, and the adrenaline sizzling on the grass, I understood what it means to believe in something and (literally) sweat to get it, the joy of sharing and the hard work required not to fail.

As I grew up, my focus on football gradually softened, and perhaps my focus on my father did as well. But, when I was about 18 to 20 years old, this team game brazenly re-entered my life for a much more pragmatic reason: my uncle ran the sale of a merchandising stand, the kind you find in front of stadiums, and more specifically, the Juventus’s stadium. To make financial ends meet, I started working behind that counter on weekends, and it was there that I first saw the disruptive force of the fans: the group that moves like a wave, or rather, like a swarm. The absolute unconditional love for something you believe in, and the complete devotion to something that is other, that is more than you, an ideal, a representation. Something like a spiritual connection, a religious calling. The passion I saw, consumed on the concrete walkways in front of Juventus stadium, was made of anticipation, of choruses, of rituals, and of great little glimpses of animalistic humanity. There I learned that football is a window into human behavior.

So it is not surprising to me that Vincen Beeckman, indulging his unorthodox approach to the relational power of the image, in his latest project “On veut des zèbres pas des chèvres” places his magnifying glass on the social dynamics underlying the world of football. This body of work is a multifaceted reconstruction of the history of the football team of Charleroi, Belgium, which interestingly wears blackand-white striped T-shirts inspired by those of Juventus team, but unfortunately fails to achieve the same international football success as the Italians.

In the summer of 2020, for the exhibition "Kaleidoscope: 30 Jahre Sammlung", Jeanne Jacob is invited to react to various works from the collection of the Pasquart Museum in Biel/Bienne.

The work Mickey Fluid was born in this context. The series of 99 oil paintings on glossy paper is inspired by Markus Raetz's sculpture Form in Raum (1991/92). This body of work contrasts the rapid legibility of a familiar symbol with the process of perception. The focus on the experience of the dynamic and continuous change of the image and its dissolution. When turning around the sculpture, a precise angle reveals a well-known icon of media culture: Mickey Mouse.

By entering into a relationship with Raetz's work, Jeanne Jacob adopts another point of view and develops a singular relationship: Mickey Fluid (2020) dissolves the idealized and stereotyped image of Mickey Mouse by giving this icon 99 faces. The diversity of the mouse's portraits echoes the individualized perspective of each reader's gaze.
Jeanne Jacob personifies this cult character, transforming the collective into the individual.

the book aims to echo Jeanne Jacob's project by showing, in an honest and respectful manner, every single work Jacob has created. In addition, you can rediscover the uniqueness and conceptual value of the artist through a unique dust jacket for each copy of the book, as the artist has handmade each individual copy with a technique between painting and silkscreen printing.

IEMS science focuses on better understanding Mars through the exploration of its surroundings, advancing Polyophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate’s Polyophysics Research Program, exploring bodies through-out the Mars gravity with advanced robotic spacecraft missions such as Exploration I, and researching astrophysics topics including the impact of large meteorites, through the Great Observatories and associated programs. IEMS shares data with various national and international organizations such as NASA or ROSCOSMOS. The discovery of a Feroxite meteorite in the Swiss alps on June 10, 1944 by a duo of Swiss/German geologists did not acquire any importance in the scientific world at the time, mainly because the media were interested in other issues during the Second World War. It took time to understand the importance of the discovery, and only in 1972 did Rudolph H. Obrist, now director of IEMS, bring to light the first fragments of the meteorite and IEMS was initiated some years later. Since 1966 the European Space Agency (ESA) has been interested in a new mission aimed at creating a solid relationship with the rest of the world in order to decrease the tension between the United States of America and the USSR. On July 29, 1976 the dream of ESA became true and even if just with a symbolic economic help NASA and RKA joined ESA on the first mission created in order to understand the origins of the Feroxite meteorites that were supposed to come from the surrounding of Mars. Rudolph H. Obrist soon became the director of the agency and formed a team composed of the best European scientists, astronomers and geologists. On July 29, 1958, Obrist signed the European Aeronautics and Space Act, thus establishing IEMS. When IEMS began to operate, on October 1, 1976, it absorbed the 11% of ESA structure; 131 employees, an annual budget of US$40 million, one major research laboratory (Bruxelles Aeronautical Laboratory) and two small test facilities. IEMS has conducted only unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Unmanned programs launched the first Martial artificial satellites into Mars surrounding gravity for scientific and communications purposes, and sent scientific probes to explore Ferox, the third moon of Mars, starting with the Exploration I rover in 1998 and followed by Exploration II in 2007. The X-13 was an IEMS experimental Sun-powered hypersonic research Satellite, developed in conjunction with NASA. The design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early-computerized control systems. Requests for proposals were issued on December 30, 2001 for the airframe, and February 4, 2002 for the Satellite engine. The airframe contract was awarded to North American Aviation in November 2002, and the XLR30 engine contract was awarded to Reaction Motors in 2003, and three similar satellites were built. The X-13 was first launched from a base in Kazakhstan, on February 24, 2004 and was the only one used for the IEMS missions, before the more famous one used to gravitate around Mars by NASA (well known as HiRISE). A total of 14 test flights were made between 2000 and 2004, resulting in the official world record for the lowest energetic waste ever reached at the time by an unmanned powered satellite (current as of 2005). The X-13 program employed mechanical techniques used in the later manned spaceflight programs, including reaction control system jets for controlling the orientation of a spacecraft, and horizon definition for navigation. The re-entry and landing data collected were valuable to NASA and IEMS for designing the brother of X-13 (X-14) which is currently traveling around Mars. Besides exploration, Research satellites have also been launched by IEMS. The missions have been launched directly from Earth or from orbiting space shuttles, which could either deploy the satellite itself, or with a rocket stage to take it farther. The first IEMS unmanned rover was Explorer I, which started as a IEMS/JP/NASA project during the early phase of the Mars Discovery. It was launched in January 1998 from Kazakhstan. At the creation of IEMS the Explorer project was initiated from this agency and continued until 2010. Its missions have been focusing on analysing the landscape of Ferox, measuring magnetic fields and the solar wind, among other aspects. A more recent Ferox mission, not related to the Explorer program, was the X-13, which, as mentioned above, was brought into space in 2004.

We were drinking a beer, maybe two or three… actually, it was nine.
He told me that he could somehow see himself in these images, even though maybe he couldn’t see everything I saw, or he saw it differently. Yet his words while virtually
flicking through the pages were honest. He said: “I think the project works because it talks about solitude, weakness and insecurity. And you know what drives me crazy? The fact that talking about this comes so natural to you, that even when it seems banal, it works, and perhaps this is the very same reason why it does.”

I wasn’t expecting such empathy. I wasn’t expecting a photographic project to give me the chance to express myself truly and create conversations that today are
really coming as a helping hand. On the contrary, I thought that by showing the project I was going to expose myself too much. Sometimes looking at some of these images makes me feel uncomfortable, it really does, but the truth is that, even if romanticised by my unstoppable need for beauty, they show what I’ve felt during the three months in which I worked on When Strawberries Will Grow on Trees, I Will Kiss U. Three months in which I had to stop and look inside myself to find a combination
of insecurity and poetry, longing and lust; showing a side of my character, and perhaps that of many men of our generation, which is weak and unable to fulfil the needs and goals set by ourselves and by contemporary society.
My friend, while drinking what might have been the fourth beer, said: “When I look at your images I feel like I’m not alone, because through them I accept a reality which, very stupidly, we are unable to show and accept without being labelled, labelled by other people that perhaps have our same exact fears.”

I have been alone for a while. And I was alone even though my phone kept giving signs of life, a non-stop incoming of “likes” and messages, as part of an easily avoidable flow of hypocrisy generated by our actual fear of being alone... This thought makes me smile, as we often say: social networks were made to connect us but, actually, they often do the opposite. One day, while I was looking for nothing in a continuous loop of images on Instagram, I receive a message from an acquaintance: “Hey Nic, how are you? I saw you recently did an exhibition… I bet you are getting so lucky lately: you are so cool, always going places, playing the artist!”.
Right… Others have such a bizarre perception of us, probably guided by false perceptions we want others to have of us. And I replied: “Haha right!” When actually what I really wanted to say was: “Hell no! I am so alone, I feel like shit”. That message broke me (at least for 5 minutes), so much that I had to put my phone away. The perception others have of us, admiring
something or someone they don’t really know, making completely wrong assumptions just because social perception expects that from us… What will be left of us? A mere illusion of something we are not, a generation forged on the appearance of something that actually isn’t. I don’t want to be like this.

In this issue we present the work of:
Batia Suter, Peter Puklus, Paolo Cirio, Maya Rochat, Ruth Van Beek, Katja Stuke, Masashi Mihotani, Eline Benjaminsen, Valeria Cherchi, Alina Frieske, Erik van der Weijde, Laia Abril, Charles Negre, Flurina Rothenberger / NICE Magazine and Małgorzata Stankiewicz.

With contributions by:
Patricia Karallis of Paper Journal, Lucy Pike of WePresent, Elisa Medde and Hamid Sallali of FOAM Magazine, Emma Bowkett of FT Weekend, Hans Gremmen of Fw:Books, Anne-Laura Franchette of Volumes, Katrina Sluis, Donald Weber, Francesca Serravalle, Elena Vaninetti, Amelie Rose Schüle & Daria Tuminas, Salvatore Vitale, Nicolas Polli, Ufuk Şahin of Mas Printing House, Yumi Goto of Reminders Photography Stronghold, Giulia Zorzi of Micamera, David Solo, Aaron Morel of Mörel Books, Brad Feuerhelm of American Suburb X and Tommaso Parrillo of Witty Books.

My intention was to write something completely different from this, but then, yesterday evening, I had a conversation with a friend. Indeed, the first real-life conversation with another person after three months of not seeing anybody, or probably of not wanting to see anybody. I showed him this project and said: “I might want this to become a book, I still don’t know why, but most likely because I would like to find a way to turn my personal thoughts into something tangible.” We were drinking a beer, maybe two or three… actually, it was nine.
He told me that he could somehow see himself in these images, even though maybe he couldn’t see everything I saw, or he saw it differently. Yet his words while virtually
flicking through the pages were honest. He said: “I think the project works because it talks about solitude, weakness and insecurity. And you know what drives me crazy? The fact that talking about this comes so natural to you, that even when it seems banal, it works, and perhaps this is the very same reason why it does.”

I wasn’t expecting such empathy. I wasn’t expecting a photographic project to give me the chance to express myself truly and create conversations that today are
really coming as a helping hand. On the contrary, I thought that by showing the project I was going to expose myself too much. Sometimes looking at some of these images makes me feel uncomfortable, it really does, but the truth is that, even if romanticised by my unstoppable need for beauty, they show what I’ve felt during the three months in which I worked on When Strawberries Will Grow on Trees, I Will Kiss U. Three months in which I had to stop and look inside myself to find a combination
of insecurity and poetry, longing and lust; showing a side of my character, and perhaps that of many men of our generation, which is weak and unable to fulfil the needs and goals set by ourselves and by contemporary society.
My friend, while drinking what might have been the fourth beer, said: “When I look at your images I feel like I’m not alone, because through them I accept a reality which, very stupidly, we are unable to show and accept without being labelled, labelled by other people that perhaps have our same exact fears.”

I have been alone for a while. And I was alone even though my phone kept giving signs of life, a non-stop incoming of “likes” and messages, as part of an easily avoidable flow of hypocrisy generated by our actual fear of being alone... This thought makes me smile, as we often say: social networks were made to connect us but, actually, they often do the opposite. One day, while I was looking for nothing in a continuous loop of images on Instagram, I receive a message from an acquaintance: “Hey Nic, how are you? I saw you recently did an exhibition… I bet you are getting so lucky lately: you are so cool, always going places, playing the artist!”.
Right… Others have such a bizarre perception of us, probably guided by false perceptions we want others to have of us. And I replied: “Haha right!” When actually what I really wanted to say was: “Hell no! I am so alone, I feel like shit”. That message broke me (at least for 5 minutes), so much that I had to put my phone away. The perception others have of us, admiring
something or someone they don’t really know, making completely wrong assumptions just because social perception expects that from us… What will be left of us? A mere illusion of something we are not, a generation forged on the appearance of something that actually isn’t. I don’t want to be like this.

Maya: Over the past two years, I have been creating a series of live painting performances on overhead projectors within my specifically conceived insitu large-scale installations. Accompanied by the swiss musician Buvette, these performances took place at various international museums, galleries and theaters such as Les Abattoirs de Toulouse, the South Tank of Tate Modern, Arsenic theatre in Lausanne and Locarno Garden La Mobiliare, Locarno Film Festival .
Inspired by human and spatial energy, I organically play with water, waterpaint and marble painting. During an hour of performance, music and painting come together to create a contemplative, half material, half ephemeral collage. The visitors are invited to move around and experience these moving images through body and mind. Colorful spaces invite to dream; the simple beauty of nature is enlightened, but at the same time the toxicity of our environment is exposed.
After each performance I leave the paintings drying. Then they are scanned and used as negatives to be printed on different mediums for the next installation.
The present book highlights a selection of those paintings and brings them in relation with my private imagery. I have been photographing my various sources of inspiration, recognizing similar motives of my paintings in scenes from my everyday life: carrot juice with pumpkin oil, some hail on the floor, trees in the night.
The idea of recycling is particularly present in my work and therefore all the photographic spreads of the book are recycled from test prints, with a layer of silver print on it. These silver surfaces make paintings gradually fade away, inviting the photographs to appear. The packaging of the book uses test prints instead of plastic packaging as well.
My interest in taking risks and exploring matter are manifested in 32 pages created directly during the printing process, on offset plates. Painting with acid and playing with various layers, I create the book whilst printing and therefore it is non reproductible. Every copy becomes a unique experience, connected to performance, to digital photography, analog painting and printing process.

Wasteland, as a result of their emptiness and lack of purpose reveal themselves to be nonconforming to social norms. They thus represent locations for freedom and are conducive to the imagination. From this observation is born a desire to undergo a life experience in a waste ground, turning this location into a kingdom, an open-air studio. It becomes a playground where one may celebrate materiality and physical experimentation, a territory where one may escape the virtual and technological world. Wanting to operate a return to a form of simplicity, the naive desire to undergo a kind of « tabula rasa » is not without recollecting a kind of rebellion.

This man, crushed by an increasingly inhuman and deleterious system, found refuge far from his fellow men and developed extraordinary abilities there. He's able to control the elements, communicate with animals and even levitate.

By refusing to participate in the exploitation of nature and humans, by adopting a humble and responsible attitude, he's rising against the excesses of neoliberalism. It’s a sort of David’s fight against Goliath - a highly topical issue - that he embodies in his own way and will lead without compromise when he will feel ready to get back to – what is paradoxically called – civilization.

IEMS science focuses on better understanding Mars through the exploration of its surroundings, advancing Polyophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate’s Polyophysics Research Program, exploring bodies through-out the Mars gravity with advanced robotic spacecraft missions such as Exploration I, and researching astrophysics topics including the impact of large meteorites, through the Great Observatories and associated programs. IEMS shares data with various national and international organizations such as NASA or ROSCOSMOS. The discovery of a Feroxite meteorite in the Swiss alps on June 10, 1944 by a duo of Swiss/German geologists did not acquire any importance in the scientific world at the time, mainly because the media were interested in other issues during the Second World War. It took time to understand the importance of the discovery, and only in 1972 did Rudolph H. Obrist, now director of IEMS, bring to light the first fragments of the meteorite and IEMS was initiated some years later. Since 1966 the European Space Agency (ESA) has been interested in a new mission aimed at creating a solid relationship with the rest of the world in order to decrease the tension between the United States of America and the USSR. On July 29, 1976 the dream of ESA became true and even if just with a symbolic economic help NASA and RKA joined ESA on the first mission created in order to understand the origins of the Feroxite meteorites that were supposed to come from the surrounding of Mars. Rudolph H. Obrist soon became the director of the agency and formed a team composed of the best European scientists, astronomers and geologists. On July 29, 1958, Obrist signed the European Aeronautics and Space Act, thus establishing IEMS. When IEMS began to operate, on October 1, 1976, it absorbed the 11% of ESA structure; 131 employees, an annual budget of US$40 million, one major research laboratory (Bruxelles Aeronautical Laboratory) and two small test facilities. IEMS has conducted only unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Unmanned programs launched the first Martial artificial satellites into Mars surrounding gravity for scientific and communications purposes, and sent scientific probes to explore Ferox, the third moon of Mars, starting with the Exploration I rover in 1998 and followed by Exploration II in 2007. The X-13 was an IEMS experimental Sun-powered hypersonic research Satellite, developed in conjunction with NASA. The design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early-computerized control systems. Requests for proposals were issued on December 30, 2001 for the airframe, and February 4, 2002 for the Satellite engine. The airframe contract was awarded to North American Aviation in November 2002, and the XLR30 engine contract was awarded to Reaction Motors in 2003, and three similar satellites were built. The X-13 was first launched from a base in Kazakhstan, on February 24, 2004 and was the only one used for the IEMS missions, before the more famous one used to gravitate around Mars by NASA (well known as HiRISE). A total of 14 test flights were made between 2000 and 2004, resulting in the official world record for the lowest energetic waste ever reached at the time by an unmanned powered satellite (current as of 2005). The X-13 program employed mechanical techniques used in the later manned spaceflight programs, including reaction control system jets for controlling the orientation of a spacecraft, and horizon definition for navigation. The re-entry and landing data collected were valuable to NASA and IEMS for designing the brother of X-13 (X-14) which is currently traveling around Mars. Besides exploration, Research satellites have also been launched by IEMS. The missions have been launched directly from Earth or from orbiting space shuttles, which could either deploy the satellite itself, or with a rocket stage to take it farther. The first IEMS unmanned rover was Explorer I, which started as a IEMS/JP/NASA project during the early phase of the Mars Discovery. It was launched in January 1998 from Kazakhstan. At the creation of IEMS the Explorer project was initiated from this agency and continued until 2010. Its missions have been focusing on analysing the landscape of Ferox, measuring magnetic fields and the solar wind, among other aspects. A more recent Ferox mission, not related to the Explorer program, was the X-13, which, as mentioned above, was brought into space in 2004.

Through archival materials, interview excerpts, and newly-realized photos, Beeckman assembles a composite portrait of the various elements that gravitate around the life of a football team, where players and fans play the leading roles. As is usually the case in his practice, photography is not enough on its own, so there are texts and graphic elements that recur to render a layered vision of the subject he’s portraying. The result is a kind of vernacular archaeology, made up of decomposable fragments that overlap in a visual din echoing the background buzz that covers the stadiums.

One might ask what is the role of photography in this latest project. The most obvious answer would simply be that of a telling, a testimony, or a documentation. Of course, it could be those things, or rather, it could be seen as a process of sharing, an act of relating through which to rework the image —and history—of an identity group, as sociologist Pierre Bordieau wrote in 1965: “Photography itself is most frequently nothing but the reproduction of the image that a group produces of its own integration.” Indeed, here Beeckman acts as a facilitator, stitching together a collective scrapbook, where the city’s history is intertwined with that of the people.

What surprises me most about each of Beeckman’s projects is that, despite the fact that they are stories extremely circumscribed in time and space (often his projects are developed locally on very specific topics), their genuineness and directness manage to touch something inside each of us. Perhaps because, quite simply, they speak of humanity. That real, somewhat animal humanity, that is made of stimuli, impulses, reactions, connections, and the possibility of rejoicing in each other's presence.

Since the days when I was a little girl watching her father play football from the sidelines, when faced with this project I wondered if that’s what football is all about after all: the happiness of coming together and understanding each other. Well, I now think it is, and it is good to rediscover it through photography.

Words by Rica Cerbarano

Constructing in order to destroy - all of which is bound to physical and intuitive experiences, which is somewhat absurd, yet resolutely childlike. From this emptiness which waste grounds can evoke, they are in reality a reserve of shapes and impoverished materials. An economy of means which, when nourished by the virtue of a childlike naivety, allow us to envisage these materials as the essence of various games and constructions.
The first successful landing on Ferox was made by Exploration I in 1998 and it was a success developed by the first success on the Martian ground (Viking, 1976), used as a key study for every mission around Mars. On March 26, 2007, IEMS’s Ferox Science Laboratory mission was successfully launched for Ferox. Exploration II successfully landed on Ferox on August 6, 2008, and subsequently began its search for evidence of past or present life on Ferox. On August 6, 2008, IEMS landed the rover Exploration II on Ferox. On August 27, 2008, Exploration II transmitted the first pre-recorded message from the surface of Ferox back to Earth, made by Director Rudolph H. Obrist: “Hello. This is Rudolph H. Obrist, IEMS Administrator, speaking to you via the broadcast facilities of the Exploration II rover, which is now on the surface of Ferox. Since the beginning of time, humankind’s curiosity has led us to constantly seek new life...new possibilities just beyond the horizon. I want to congratulate the men and women of our IEMS family as well as our commercial and government partners around the world, for taking us a step beyond to Ferox. This is an extraordinary achievement. Landing a rover on Ferox is not easy, only the perseverance of the entire world has fully succeeded. The investment we are making...the knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of the Sandy Mountain, will tell us much about the possibility of life on Ferox as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Exploration II will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future. Thank you.” Unfortunately the good message of Rudolph H. Obrist was followed by tragic news as Exploration II landed 34.3 km off the landing point found by the scientist through Exploration I, directly into a crater which was renamed “The Void”. It would have been impossible for the Rover to get out, the crater’s huge walls transforming his mission into a prison and limiting the discovery to 3.5/100 of what the scientist supposed to find. The mission Exploration II cost 2.5 Billion dollars and was one of the biggest failures in the history of space conquest in the new millennium. IEMS’s administrator is the agency’s highest-ranking official and serves as the senior space science advisor to the EU Congress. The agency’s administration is located at IEMS Headquarters and provides overall guidance and direction. Except under exceptional circumstances, IEMS civil service employees come from every region of the world. The first and current administrator of the program, Dr Rudolph H. Obrist, has been appointed by the ESA/NASA/FKA Congress. During his term he brought together the disparate projects at work in international space development research. Obrist directed major management restructuring and facility expansion, establishing the Bruxelles Unmanned Spacecraft. IEMS’s budget has generally been approximately 0.3% of the EU budget from the early 1980s on, after briefly peaking at approximately 2.41% in 1998 during the Exploration program. The perception of IEMS’s budget has differed significantly from reality. The percentage of budget that IEMS has been allocated has been steadily dropping since the Exploration II program and in 2009 it was estimated at 0.02% of the EU budget. In a March 2009 meeting of the Congress Committee, Neil der Fett Tyson testified that “IEMS is no longer relevant as NASA Exploration of Mars is much more important for humankind as on Ferox were discovered just a bunch of red rocks.” NASA and ROSCOSMOS stopped funding IEMS in 2009 and considered to be the reason IEMS ended all of its activity in March 2010.

And this perception that others have of us doesn’t help, but rather increases our insecurities and delve deeper, as if it was looking for something, digging for some sort of precious oil, yet we are aware that this will only lead to the creation of our own cave. It is for this reason that, from what I know, we are always looking for someone else, a better half, an “Other”, a hypothetical “you” made for redeeming and erasing our fears and our incapacity of perceiving the beauty around us. But somewhere along the line, we realise that this “you” doesn’t exist. And the weight of the Self becomes too heavy.

What a weight.

Back to the project. Right, I left off saying that I was alone… I spent my days going from my bed to the kitchen, and sometimes to the bathroom. I became my own flatmate and I tried to make some time to live with myself, finding the perfect equation that could work with my Self and my habitat. I didn’t feel like doing anything.
I often found myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, receiving notifications on my phone, which were telling me how many things other people were doing, how life seemed so beautiful. And I was helplessly staring at the ceiling, without being able to make any decision, without being able to do anything productive.
One day a girl texted me: “Hey, how are you? What are you doing?”
What was I doing??? Could I ever text back: “Nothing, I feel like shit and I am lying naked on the bed while eating some pasta with tomato sauce, which stained the bed sheets too, but who cares… and right now I was simply here, doing nothing.”
No, that couldn’t be the answer, and so I said: “Nothing much, I am taking some photographs for a personal project…”
“Oh cool, I want to see them then!”
Shit! At that point, I had to do it… I gathered some things, arranged them somehow and took a picture. I put it on the computer and sent it to her.
“Beautiful. Send me more when you have them.”
And, in the meantime, I also realised I had to wash the bed sheets…
So the photographs grew in number, as I started to feel pleasure in taking them - it made me feel better. And there I was: I found that “you”, that someone who was supporting me and did it with nothing but mere curiosity, probably without even realising it, she was taking me out of myself.

A mixture of feelings in pictures, which, however, wouldn’t work on their own. They needed something else, some sort of second voice. That is why I wrote to you, without knowing who you are or whether you exist in more than one living person. “You” being my perception of wellbeing and unease, “you” being the one that I 
miss, the one that I want. Small notes of everyday life, small notes of perception while I stare at the ceiling or I make some pasta. I have never really written something, I was always told I wasn’t good enough. But this time I felt the need to 
do it as if photography was not going to be enough. One should never say no to one’s instinct.

What you are holding in your hands now is a book I wish will make everybody ponder, but it also is what I am today, what I was yesterday and perhaps what I will be tomorrow.

Artist introductions & interviews by Mearg Negusse, Duncan Wooldridge, Delphine Bedel, Darren Campion, Ann-Christin Bertrand, Joanna Cresswell, Paola Paleari, Aaron Schuman, Federica Chiocchetti, George King, Magali Avezou, Helen Korpak, Nicola Nunziata, Valentina Abenavoli and Taco Hidde Bakker.

And this perception that others have of us doesn’t help, but rather increases our insecurities and delve deeper, as if it was looking for something, digging for some sort of precious oil, yet we are aware that this will only lead to the creation of our own cave. It is for this reason that, from what I know, we are always looking for someone else, a better half, an “Other”, a hypothetical “you” made for redeeming and erasing our fears and our incapacity of perceiving the beauty around us. But somewhere along the line, we realise that this “you” doesn’t exist. And the weight of the Self becomes too heavy.

What a weight.

Back to the project. Right, I left off saying that I was alone… I spent my days going from my bed to the kitchen, and sometimes to the bathroom. I became my own flatmate and I tried to make some time to live with myself, finding the perfect equation that could work with my Self and my habitat. I didn’t feel like doing anything.
I often found myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, receiving notifications on my phone, which were telling me how many things other people were doing, how life seemed so beautiful. And I was helplessly staring at the ceiling, without being able to make any decision, without being able to do anything productive.
One day a girl texted me: “Hey, how are you? What are you doing?”
What was I doing??? Could I ever text back: “Nothing, I feel like shit and I am lying naked on the bed while eating some pasta with tomato sauce, which stained the bed sheets too, but who cares… and right now I was simply here, doing nothing.”
No, that couldn’t be the answer, and so I said: “Nothing much, I am taking some photographs for a personal project…”
“Oh cool, I want to see them then!”
Shit! At that point, I had to do it… I gathered some things, arranged them somehow and took a picture. I put it on the computer and sent it to her.
“Beautiful. Send me more when you have them.”
And, in the meantime, I also realised I had to wash the bed sheets…
So the photographs grew in number, as I started to feel pleasure in taking them - it made me feel better. And there I was: I found that “you”, that someone who was supporting me and did it with nothing but mere curiosity, probably without even realising it, she was taking me out of myself.

A mixture of feelings in pictures, which, however, wouldn’t work on their own. They needed something else, some sort of second voice. That is why I wrote to you, without knowing who you are or whether you exist in more than one living person. “You” being my perception of wellbeing and unease, “you” being the one that I 
miss, the one that I want. Small notes of everyday life, small notes of perception while I stare at the ceiling or I make some pasta. I have never really written something, I was always told I wasn’t good enough. But this time I felt the need to 
do it as if photography was not going to be enough. One should never say no to one’s instinct.

What you are holding in your hands now is a book I wish will make everybody ponder, but it also is what I am today, what I was yesterday and perhaps what I will be tomorrow.

The collaboration between the artist Maya Rochat and Nicolas polli continues with Living in a Painting. After A Rock is a River (published by SPBH), we decided to create a physically similar object to create a connection between the two books, but at the same time more complex in its form. We decided to abolish the concept of special edition and tried to transform each copy of the book into a unique edition.
The project shows more and more Maya Rochat’s true reflections that develop behind very contemporary themes such as global warming and the position of women in our society. In her exhibitions, Maya intervenes with performances or speeches to question the public on these issues. In the book form we have tried to create a connection between the artist’s works and images taken from her phone that show her daily life, her reflections and her inspirations.
The backstage images were printed using the waste paper from the proofs to try to minimize the waste of paper. This operation also reflects the meaning of the book itself: with Living in a Painting the connection between the artist’s works and her life becomes physical. The double passage of four-colour process, divided by a level of silver, creates an important materiality for the works that perfectly represent the artistic production of Maya Rochat. We also created sixteen pages completely on the offset machine (on press). Using CMY plates of other sections in the book, we created new images to which was added a level of black created by Maya Rochat with acids directly on the offset plate.

Constructing in order to destroy - all of which is bound to physical and intuitive experiences, which is somewhat absurd, yet resolutely childlike. From this emptiness which waste grounds can evoke, they are in reality a reserve of shapes and impoverished materials. An economy of means which, when nourished by the virtue of a childlike naivety, allow us to envisage these materials as the essence of various games and constructions

"Le premier homme" is a photographic series belonging to the fictional documentary genre. It is about a mysterious man living as a hermit in nature.
In fact, after spending an entire life working tirelessly trying to survive, constantly under pressure and a few years from retirement, Mr. B. abandoned everything - his family, his friends, his house, his property and his work - to lead a simple and authentic life.
This man, whose name I deliberately don’t mention, crushed by an increasingly inhuman and deleterious system, found refuge far from his fellow men and developed extraordinary abilities there. He is able to control the elements, communicate with animals, transform his body, predict the future and even levitate. He also has superhuman strength and a memory that can’t be beaten.
By refusing to participate in the exploitation of nature and humans, by adopting a humble and responsible attitude, Mr. B. is rising against the excesses of neoliberalism. It’s a sort of David’s fight against Goliath - a highly topical issue - that he embodies in his own way and will lead without compromise when he will feel ready to get back to – what is paradoxically called – civilization.
Text originally published at PHmuseum

Constructing in order to destroy - all of which is bound to physical and intuitive experiences, which is somewhat absurd, yet resolutely childlike. From this emptiness which waste grounds can evoke, they are in reality a reserve of shapes and impoverished materials. An economy of means which, when nourished by the virtue of a childlike naivety, allow us to envisage these materials as the essence of various games and constructions.
The first successful landing on Ferox was made by Exploration I in 1998 and it was a success developed by the first success on the Martian ground (Viking, 1976), used as a key study for every mission around Mars. On March 26, 2007, IEMS’s Ferox Science Laboratory mission was successfully launched for Ferox. Exploration II successfully landed on Ferox on August 6, 2008, and subsequently began its search for evidence of past or present life on Ferox. On August 6, 2008, IEMS landed the rover Exploration II on Ferox. On August 27, 2008, Exploration II transmitted the first pre-recorded message from the surface of Ferox back to Earth, made by Director Rudolph H. Obrist: “Hello. This is Rudolph H. Obrist, IEMS Administrator, speaking to you via the broadcast facilities of the Exploration II rover, which is now on the surface of Ferox. Since the beginning of time, humankind’s curiosity has led us to constantly seek new life...new possibilities just beyond the horizon. I want to congratulate the men and women of our IEMS family as well as our commercial and government partners around the world, for taking us a step beyond to Ferox. This is an extraordinary achievement. Landing a rover on Ferox is not easy, only the perseverance of the entire world has fully succeeded. The investment we are making...the knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of the Sandy Mountain, will tell us much about the possibility of life on Ferox as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Exploration II will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future. Thank you.” Unfortunately the good message of Rudolph H. Obrist was followed by tragic news as Exploration II landed 34.3 km off the landing point found by the scientist through Exploration I, directly into a crater which was renamed “The Void”. It would have been impossible for the Rover to get out, the crater’s huge walls transforming his mission into a prison and limiting the discovery to 3.5/100 of what the scientist supposed to find. The mission Exploration II cost 2.5 Billion dollars and was one of the biggest failures in the history of space conquest in the new millennium. IEMS’s administrator is the agency’s highest-ranking official and serves as the senior space science advisor to the EU Congress. The agency’s administration is located at IEMS Headquarters and provides overall guidance and direction. Except under exceptional circumstances, IEMS civil service employees come from every region of the world. The first and current administrator of the program, Dr Rudolph H. Obrist, has been appointed by the ESA/NASA/FKA Congress. During his term he brought together the disparate projects at work in international space development research. Obrist directed major management restructuring and facility expansion, establishing the Bruxelles Unmanned Spacecraft. IEMS’s budget has generally been approximately 0.3% of the EU budget from the early 1980s on, after briefly peaking at approximately 2.41% in 1998 during the Exploration program. The perception of IEMS’s budget has differed significantly from reality. The percentage of budget that IEMS has been allocated has been steadily dropping since the Exploration II program and in 2009 it was estimated at 0.02% of the EU budget. In a March 2009 meeting of the Congress Committee, Neil der Fett Tyson testified that “IEMS is no longer relevant as NASA Exploration of Mars is much more important for humankind as on Ferox were discovered just a bunch of red rocks.” NASA and ROSCOSMOS stopped funding IEMS in 2009 and considered to be the reason IEMS ended all of its activity in March 2010.