If money cannot buy happiness, what drives people to participate in a lottery? And what effect does (almost) winning have on someone’s life, or that of the people around them? Cécile Hupin and Katherine Longly set out to compare dreams with reality by giving a voice to those who won or came close to winning a jackpot, for better or for worse. Their stories form a reflection of our society, our aspirations, our beliefs, and our fraught relationship with money. All of the personal accounts t...

‘The Essential’ reveals the ways in which we are unique, but also the similarities we share, despite our differences. Artists Martin and Inge Riebeek have been actively collecting stories from people around the world since 2010. The people they portray tell about what matters most to them, or what is essential in their lives. The resulting body of work thus far contains more than 600 video portraits of individuals from 23 countries. This book is a celebration of this past decade of work b...

Inspired by the Anthropocene, media artist Stephen Cornford speculates on the deep future of electronic waste as it sediments into Earth’s stratigraphic record. By applying geological techniques to a hypothetical “technofossil”, he seeks to materialise an inevitable scenario where discarded technologies become part of the planet’s geology. Colourful microscope imagery combines with analyses of elementary composition and details on the origin of the indispensable metals used in the pro...

During the pandemic, Sheung Yiu (HK/FI) started digitising everything on his desk at home. He created 3D models of 81 objects and added texture details using a computer graphic technique known as projective texturing. This transformed his physical desktop into a three-dimensional digital world. The digitisation of his desktop produced a dataset of digital objects that became an archaeological site of his everyday life. Everything Is a Projection explores one of the visual systems that form th...

While browsing an auction site full of second-hand snapshots, Erik Lieber (NL) bought the first five images of what would grow into a collection of 929 amateur snapshots over the next ten years. 'Monumental Moments' consists of anonymous private prints, which he calls ‘orphan snapshots’. They show an unknown Japanese ‘Mom’ and ‘Girl’. The collection is almost entirely defined by the repetitive manner in which both women were photographed, preferably in or near tourist attractions....

Fascinated by awareness and ignorance, visual artist Anna Püschel began collecting definitions of words related to knowledge from a broad range of sources, from medieval texts to modern dictionaries. While some are objectively true and others are questionable, she nevertheless gathered the various definitions in this volume, a work that redefines referencing while juxtaposing French poetry with conspiracy theories, political essays, and recipes. Regardless of their origin, the definitions im...

The complex history and contested borders that shaped the countries of former Yugoslavia provide the stage on which Croatian-born Lana Mesic´ (NL) weaves new, personal narratives, examining the role and meaning of the enemy image in her fragmented childhood and how this history echoes upon this day. In light of recent political developments in Europe, the book encourages us to reflect on our own experiences. By bringing these to light, it helps to counter the nationalist narratives that domi...

'You Know I Am Not There' is a line from the song 'Know' by English singer-songwriter Nick Drake. He was well-known to a small circle of fans in his time and died in 1974 at the age of 26. Now, Drake has achieved true cult status and is seen as one of the most important singer-songwriters of the twentieth century. Visual artist Danielle Lemaire traced his footsteps, immersed herself in his mystical view of the world, and sought contact with ‘Drakeheads’, resulting in a series of drawings....

'Niemandsland' investigates the impact of brown coal extraction in Germany’s Rhineland, where some of Europe’s largest open-cast lignite mines have dramatically altered the landscape and contributed heavily to CO2 emissions. These mines have displaced entire villages, causing a sense of powerlessness among residents who grew up knowing that their homes would one day be destroyed. In 2012, environmental activists occupied Hambach Forest. Despite some success in preserving parts of the fore...