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Yelena Yemchuk
Mise en Abyme


40 € EUR 

First Edition
November 2024

Born from the collaboration between Yelena Yemchuk and Départ Pour l’Image co-founders, Luca Reffo and Francesca Todde, Mise en Abyme is a spin-off of previous book УYY, Україна Yelena Yemchuk, published in July 2022. If УYY appeared as a daydream in a backward journey from the present to youth, Mise en Abyme continues in the form of a phantom reflection of the gaze into the abyss of imagination. The original narrative – the sequence as of stream of consciousness – is rewritten through the montage of residual images of typographical proofs, enlargements, paintings, and photographs. The process behind the book suggests endless and different versions that could ideally repeat themselves infinitely. Each copy of the book contains a unique and different folded original print, which is 1/8th of a typographic sheet saved from being pulped.

Book launch and signing:
Polycopies, Paris
November 9th, 2024 at 5PM


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Press:

L’intervalle Blog
by Fabien Ribery

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235x320 mm | 64 pages
English
Linnen hard cover
Rounded spine
Offset CMYK

Munken Print White 115 g/m²
Cover on Peyer Duchesse Birkenweiss

Printed in Italy by Longo spa
First edition 1000 copies
November 2024
ISBN 978-88-947598-2-2




Francesca Todde
IUZZA. Goliarda Sapienza


52 € EUR

First Edition
July 2024

IUZZA by Francesca Todde tells the story of an encounter, a night sea crossing in search of Goliarda Sapienza. “Iuzza” is the loving childhood nickname given to the writer back in Sicily, where she comes to world in 1924. The crooked symmetry betwee her biography and work is filled with invisible presences: the vigor of her literary adventure resembles a treasure salvaged from a wreckage.
Starting from Sapienza’s novels, poems, short stories, letters, and personal records, IUZZA unravels as an intimate journey triggered by antagonistic forces, subverting the nature of forms and turning words into images. The sequence of images consists of seven sections that operate through temporal displacement, textual references, and concatenated events. Each part originates from an indirect dialogue with its own absence, as a sort of telepathic exchange through empty space aimed a magnifying the perception of emotional connections. Francesca Todde’s photographs are like inner landscapes, or animated spaces leaping across the blurred lines of memory. Her gaze through the lens seems to open on a deserted bustle, following faded footprints up to their origin, which is childish and ancestral, animal and mineral: these images are traces haunted by thefeeling that body is everywhere.

(From the Afterword by Luca Reffo)

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Italian, French, English
Texts: Luca Reffo
French translation: Nathalie Castagné
English translation: Marina Calvaresi

165x230 mm | 280 pages
Linnen hard cover with cardboard slipcase
Offset CMYK

Fedrigoni Arena White Rough 120 g/m² | Fedrigoni Sirio Black 140 g/m²
Cover on Peyer Linesse Zartgelb 20302

Printed in Italy by Longo spa
First edition 1500 copies
ISBN 978-88-947598-7-7

This book received the support of
Collezione Donata Pizzi.

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Press:

Conscientious Photography Magazine
by Jörg Colberg

PhMuseum
Photobooks we love from 2024

Marie Claire Italia
by Lavinia Farnese

Io Donna Corriere della Sera
by Renata Ferri

L’intervalle blog
by Fabien Ribery

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Exhibitions:

Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie
curated by Raphaëlle Stopin








For all inquiries, please write to info@departpourlimage.com


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Francesco Merlini
Better in the Dark Than His Rider


45 € EUR

Second Edition
October 2023

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Kraszna-Krausz Foundation
Book Award 2024
Longlist Photography

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PhotoEspana
Book Award 2024
Shortlist

Born out of a reflection on the nature of images and their nocturnal vocation, Better in the Dark than His Rider is both a fable and a survival guide. The collected work by Francesco Merlini spans different years, possibly quite distant from one other; shot in all four continents, his pictures reveal the unique perspective of someone who, like a sleepwalker guided by ghosts, seeks for something nameless. The title is drawn, almost literally, from a 19th century manual of optics. The original sentence – “[…] much better in the dark than his rider” – refers to a horse’s night vision compared to a human’s.

The selected sequence of pictures unravels around the transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep, engaging with hypnagogia as a sensory yet dreamlike mode of semiconscious representation. Images make up mind’s psychic contents. If in dreams self-consciousness is suspended and images look real to the extent that we are sleeping, when dozing we can consciously guide them because partially aware that we are dreaming. Stated otherwise, in lucid dreams we know we are faced with the contents of our imagination, whose edges appear hallucinatory. Dreaming is a perpetual state we do experience both asleep and awake. Thanks to imagination, the dream matter turns into the mind’s real object again.

“Better in the Dark than His Rider by Francesco Merlini is a creative meditation on the sense of sight drawn together from seemingly unrelated images from the artist’s extended archive. There is a visual sumptuousness to this publication which is enhanced by an approach to the sequencing and design, guided by a sensitive, original reading of colour. This is an expertly achieved photobook, conceptually and aesthetically.”
Anthony Luvera
Juror for Kraszna-Krausz Book Award 2024

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Text by Luca Reffo
Italian, English
English translation: Marina Calvaresi

23,5x31cm
80 pages
Hardback with embossing on jacket
Black printed page edges
Offset CMYK + UV

Paper:
Munken Lynx Rough 150 g/m²
Fedrigoni Sirio Nero 140 g/m²
Wibalin Natural Slate 120 g/m²
Wibalin Natural Petal 120 g/m²

Printed in Italy by Longo spa
First Edition July 2023
Second Edition October 2023

ISBN 978 88 944622 8 9

Select your shipping options at the checkout. If your country is not on the list, please contact us at info@departpourlimage.com and we’ll provide you a shipping quote.

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Photobookstore
Photobooks of 2023 
Vanessa Winship 

Book of the month

September 2023
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

In the bookshelf of
Josef Chladek

Book review:

PhMuseum
by Camilla Marrese

American Suburb X
by Benedetta Casagrande

Blind Magazine
by Gaia Squarci

Marie Claire
by Emanuela Mirabelli

L’intervalle
by Fabien Ribery

Creative Review
by Daniel Milroy Maher

Il Fotografo
by Benedetta Donato

Dohdo magazine

Artwort
by Laura Malaterra

Vera Muratet
Tout va bien


23 € EUR

Second Edition
October 2024

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Arles Books Award 2024
The Author Book Award
Shortlist 

Tout va bien by Vera Muratet, bordering between art and photography, is not a book for children but by a 10-year-old girl. Inspired by 19th century science books, it is a talking bestiary populated only by very young animals, in accordance with the secret affinity between portrait and self-portrait. In the book, photographs by her father Myr Muratet provide a backstory to Vera's drawings. 

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French, English
Texts by:
François Chiron, Vera Muratet, Luca Reffo and Francesca Todde 
English translation: Marina Calvaresi

11x15,5cm
Hard cover
Offset CMYK + Offsetlack Semi-Matt

114 pages
Paper:
Arena Natural Smooth 140 g/m²
Fedrigoni Woodstock Giallo 110 g/m²
Wibalin Finelinen Buttermilk

Printed in Italy by Longo spa
First edition of 1000 copies

ISBN 978 88 944622 9 6

First Edition July 2023
Second Edition October 2024

Select your shipping options at the checkout. If your country is not on the list, please contact us at info@departpourlimage.com and we’ll provide you a shipping quote.

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Book review:

Conscientious
Photography Magazine

by Jörg Colberg

Micamera
by Giulia Zorzi

L’intervalle blog
by Fabien Ribery

Yelena Yemchuk
УYY



57 € EUR

First Edition
July 2022

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Paris Photo / Aperture
Awards 2022

Photobook of the Year

Shortlisted

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PHotoESPAÑA
Book Awards 2023

International category
Winner

УYY
is an acronym for Україна Yelena Yemchuk, meaning the Slavic word for «Ukraine» followed by the name of the Kyiv-born author of the present book. Given the misleading resemblance between У and Y, the title may at first appear to be «why-why-why».

The publishing project brings together the author's photographs, paintings and personal archive to bring out the essential elements of her wide-ranging and heterogeneous research.  The story’s time is disjointed in fragmented visions, fleeting appearances, and shadow games.

Україна Yelena Yemchuk is like a daydream unfolding backwards. From last to first, each chapter provides a makeshift compass in order not to get lost in a maze of exceptions and coincidences.

The book is an invitation to escape from within the confines of common sense, to surrender to the vertigo of memory, to engage with the author in an inner and intimate dialogue through the image.

www.yelenayemchuk.com

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English
Text by Luca Reffo
Translation: Marina Calvaresi

17,5x24,5 cm
Hard cover with embossing
Dust jacket
Offset UV

160 pages
Paper:
Munken Lynx 150 g/m²
Fedrigoni Savile Tweed Aubergine 120 g/m²
Fedrigoni Sirio Perla 80 g/m²
Fedrigoni Ispira Purezza 150 g/m²
Fedrigoni Sirio Color Nude 140 g/m²
Gardagloss 115 g/m²

Printed in Italy by Longo spa
First edition of 1000 copies
July 2022

ISBN 9788894462258

Select your shipping options at the checkout. If your country is not on the list, please contact us at info@departpourlimage.com and we’ll provide you a shipping quote.

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Press review and interview:

Conscientious Photography Magazine by Jörg Colberg

Cadrages, interview with Yelena Yemchuk by Daria Scolamacchia

Photobookstore Best 2022 books
by Terry Weifenbach

Vogue by Rica Cerbarano

Internazionale by Giovanna D’Ascenzi

L’intervalle by Fabien Ribery

SixtySix by Lark Breen

Events

Book launch at Le Bal Paris