Stones by Claire Falkenberg


STONES is a limited edition box-set of books by Canadian artist Claire Falkenberg. In collaboration with Open Projects Press, the set includes six handmade photo books: ‘Wet Night’ (2010); ‘River Trees’ (2016); ‘Continents’ (2017); ‘Rippling’ (2017); ‘Cedar’ (2018); ‘Constellations’ (2018); and an offset-printed poster, ‘Heartbreaker’ (2018). All seven are full-color landscapes of varying sizes, papers, and bindings.

Falkenberg’s photographic sequences immerse the viewer in a sensation she describes as “both knowing and not knowing.” These slow pivoting observations evoke a direct experience of the landscapes themselves, in all their contingency: What is the feeling of trees, of trash, of ice, of light? Using different sizes, bindings and pacing for each piece - some form continuous loops while others hold still - Falkenberg makes these inchoate feelings miraculously tangible.

Speaking of her work at large, Falkenberg says, “I spend a great deal of time just observing, trying to feel the thing I am looking at, trying to see the thing more clearly. I want to know it and I want to not know it. I want it to feel completely familiar while at the same time remaining mysterious, eluding me and eluding definition. It is this simultaneous sensation of knowing and not knowing that I am after. Through this experience, I want to provoke a feeling that comes before words, names or stories, a deep and subtle sense that causes one to wonder: What is this thing, and how do I already know it?”

35mm Photography
Laser-printed books
Offset-printed poster (signed & numbered)
Silk-screened box
Edition of 25
Dimensions: 12.5” x 19” x 2.25” / 31.75cm x 48.25cm x 5.75cm
ISBN: 978-1-7325437-0-6
Open Projects Press, 2018

Box set includes: