Description
As our economic and social systems prove less sustainable, Chiapparini and Marrese ask if the island, where everything is reduced to minimum necessity, could be an idealistic model for surviving the crises that engulf us. Their work includes diary extracts, quotes from residents of the island, and exploratory photographs of mysterious landscapes and portraits. The book takes a poetic, philosophical approach to comprehending the wider world through the perspective of a solitary microcosm.
Book concept + design by Tiffany Jones
The Author
Gabriele Chiapparini (b. 1980, Italy) and Camilla Marrese (b. 1998, Italy) are an artistic duo working mainly through photography. Bringing together their backgrounds as film director (Gabriele) and graphic designer (Camilla), they strongly believe in collaboration as a path to transform and process individual thinking into matter for collective elaboration. In this process, they aim to use photography as a tool to visually articulate – rather than answer – complex questions. Their works have been exhibited at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven (NL), Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia (IT), Espaço Alto in San Paulo (BR), PhMuseum Lab in Bologna (IT), Spazio MAD in Magadino (CH), Focus Artphilein in Lugano (CH), Kranj Foto Fest (SI), Casa Testori in Milan (IT). Their work has been recipient of the PhMuseum Criticae prize (2022), and a finalist of the Luigi Ghirri Prize (2024).
instagram.com/gabrielechiapparini
instagram.com/camillamarrese
Reviews + Press
“In Thinking like an Island, Chiapparini and Marrese present identity as something never fixed—it shifts and adapts, a vertiginous dance between the forces of isolation, connection, and the deep human need to belong.” – Andrea Copetti, Tipi Bookshop
“Presented as four separate booklets bound together in a single cover, ‘Thinking Like an Island’ has no set narrative or sequence – each encounter with the book is different from the last. What emerges from these combinations and recombinations is a sense of physical and psychological isolation, and of histories, geographies and identities mutually entangled and suspended somewhere between fact and fiction.” – Eugenie Shinkle, C4 Journal
“One must be ambidextrous in opening this beautifully and cleverly crafted book about a mysterious island by the creative duo, Chiapparini & Marrese. Their creation provokes the viewer to engage in a visual and mental jigsaw puzzle with psychological overtones.” – Michael Honegger, Lenscratch
See more:
Lenscratch review by Michael Honegger
CNN Style feature
The Guardian
Tipi Bookshop review by Andrea Copetti
Then There Was Us, review by Josh Bright
L’Œil de la Photographie (FR)
Noice magazine
lelitteraire (FR)
Special Notes
*Winner – ArtsLibris-Banco Sabadell 2024 Award – Barcelona
*Lensculture Favourite Photobooks of 2024, selected by Giuseppe Oliverio, Founder and Director, PhMuseum
*25 Recommended Photobooks of 2024, selected by Mireia Alises of Photo Art Books
*Favorite Photobooks of 2024 selected by What Will You Remember?
*Favourite Photobooks of 2024, selected by Andrea Copetti, Tipi Bookshop
*Christmas 2024 Photobooks Wishlist, selected by Galerie & Librairie Écho 119
*Selected Gift Recommendations 2024, IACK Japan
*Selected books of November 2024, Photo London Book Club
*Recommended title by Photobookstore UK
*Recommended title by IACK Japan
Events 2024
19 December 2024, 6.30-9pm – Book Presentation and signing at PhMuseum Lab in Bologna
14 December 2024, 6pm – Book Presentation and signing at Leporello Books in Rome
9 November 2024, 12pm – Book Launch and signing at Polycopies in Paris, Concorde Atlantique
14 November 2024, 6pm – Book launch and signing at Tipi Bookshop, Brussels
The authors and publisher gratefully acknowledge support provided by The Italian Cultural Institute in London, and Mistral Sailing
