Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Battlefield

A Myth of Two Souls is inspired by the epic tale The Ramayana. Drawing inspiration from the imagery associated with this myth and its pervasiveness in everyday Indian life, Vasantha Yogananthan is retracing the legendary route from north to south India. First recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted, and continues to evolve today. Yogananthan’s series is informed by the notion of a journey in time and offers a modern retelling of the tale.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
LIMITED EDITION PRINT
Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2015
Original: medium format 6×7 negative film
Print technique: Archival inkjet print on Canson Print Making Rag
Printed by the artist
Image size: 19 x 23,5 cm
Paper size: 21 x 25,5 cm
Edition of 25
Signed and numbered on verso
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Deserted City

A Myth of Two Souls is inspired by the epic tale The Ramayana. Drawing inspiration from the imagery associated with this myth and its pervasiveness in everyday Indian life, Vasantha Yogananthan is retracing the legendary route from north to south India. First recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted, and continues to evolve today. Yogananthan’s series is informed by the notion of a journey in time and offers a modern retelling of the tale.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
LIMITED EDITION PRINT
Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh, India, 2013
Original: medium format 6×7 negative film
Print technique: Archival inkjet print on Canson Print Making Rag
Printed by the artist
Image size: 19 x 23,5 cm
Paper size: 21 x 25,5 cm
Edition of 25
Signed and numbered on verso
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Foggy hut

A Myth of Two Souls is inspired by the epic tale The Ramayana. Drawing inspiration from the imagery associated with this myth and its pervasiveness in everyday Indian life, Vasantha Yogananthan is retracing the legendary route from north to south India. First recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted, and continues to evolve today. Yogananthan’s series is informed by the notion of a journey in time and offers a modern retelling of the tale.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
LIMITED EDITION PRINT
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2013
Original: medium format 6×7 negative film
Print technique: Archival inkjet print on Canson Print Making Rag
Printed by the artist
Image size: 19 x 23,5 cm
Paper size: 21 x 25,5 cm
Edition of 25
Signed and numbered on verso
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Alexandra Catiere

Behind the Glass

A constellation of photographs, Behind the Glass envelops portraits, landscapes, and photograms in shades of black, gray, and white.

Behind the Glass takes its title from Alexandra Catiere’s series shot in Minsk and Moscow in 2005-2006. Curated and designed by Chose Commune, this book brings together photographs from this early unpublished series with additional selected images. Included is a new set of photograms; the artist’s latest camera-less experiments composed of light, sensitized paper, pebbles and grass.

For the past 15 years, Alexandra Catiere has illuminated faces, bodies and things that weave an emotional and intimate narrative. Behind the Glass is designed for each reader to contemplate her images in their own way as each double spread can be opened to reveal another photograph. The constellation of photographs published here creates a new portrait of life as it travels across her path.

Alexandra Catière (born in Minsk, Belarus) lives and works in Paris. She graduated from the International Center of Photography (New York, USA) and was an assistant to Irving Penn. Winner of the Festival de la Photographie d'Hyères in 2007, then of the first edition of the BMW Residency at the Musée Nicéphore Niépce with an exhibition at the Rencontres d'Arles in 2012, she regularly collaborates with the press. Alexandra Catiere is the author of four photographic books. Her borderless career bears witness to her desire to reach out to the universal. From the former Soviet Union to France and the United States, she has made timelessness one of the major aspects of her work. She is represented by the In Camera Gallery (Paris).
First edition
Concept, editing and sequencing: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi & Vasantha Yogananthan
Design: Bureau Kayser, Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi & Vasantha Yogananthan
256 pages
64 black and white photographs
14.5 x 19.5 cm
Section-sewn hardcover, each double spread opens up vertically
ISBN: 979-10-96383-06-1
Publication date: 2 July 2018
Shortlisted "Photobook Of the Year" Aperture Paris Photo Book Awards 2018
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Early Times

In this first chapter of his project A Myth of Two Souls, Vasantha Yogananthan explores the beginning of the myth of the Ramayana.

Early Times is the first chapter of Vasantha Yogananthan’s long-term project A Myth of Two Souls, which offers a contemporary retelling of The Ramayana. A seven-chapter tale first recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana is one of the founding epics of Hindu mythology.

Since 2013, Yogananthan has been travelling from north to south India, retracing the itinerary of the epic’s heroes. Between fiction and reality, he deliberately blurs the lines through multiple aesthetic approaches: colour, black and white, hand-painted and illustrated photographs are interspersed with vernacular images to compose the layers of this timeless story.

This first book addresses the beginnings: it tells of the youth and education of Rama, son of King Dasharatha, and of Sita, daughter of King Janaka, who do not yet know each other but are destined to meet and fall in love. The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted through time, and for Yoganathan’s book has been retold by Indian writer Anjali Raghbeer. Yogananthan commissioned Mahalaxmi & Shantanu Das, Indian artists specialising in the tradition of Madhubani painting, to create original illustrations for display alongside his photographic work.

A Myth of Two Souls will be published in seven photobooks between 2016-2020, one per chapter of the epic.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
First edition
Graphic design: Kummer&Herrman
Text: Anjali Raghbeer
Illustrations: Mahalaxmi & Shantanu Das
Section-sewn hardcover
24,5 x 30 cm
48 photographs
104 pages
French / English
Publication date: 31 May 2016
ISBN: 978-2-9548777-3-0
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Dandaka

In this fourth chapter of his project A Myth of Two Souls, Vasantha Yogananthan retraces the episode of the abduction.

“Dandaka” is the fourth chapter of Vasantha Yogananthan’s long-term project A Myth of Two Souls, which offers a contemporary retelling of The Ramayana. A seven-chapter tale first recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana is one of the founding epics of Hindu mythology.

Since 2013, Yogananthan has been travelling from north to south India, retracing the itinerary of the epic’s heroes. Between fiction and reality, he deliberately blurs the lines through multiple aesthetic approaches: colour, hand-painted and illustrated photographs are interspersed with vernacular images to compose the layers of this timeless story.

The end of chapter three sees Lakshmana cut Surpanakha’s nose off. After seeing his sister disfigured, Ravana, the king of Sri Lanka, starts to plot his revenge. Rama and Lakshmana have no idea that their barbaric act – the mutilation of a woman – has sealed Sita’s fate. The fourth chapter tells about Sita’s abduction by Ravana. The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted through time, Dandaka mixes strips from the comic book version of the epic, which was published in the 1970s, along with Vasantha Yogananthan’s photographs.

A Myth of Two Souls will be published in seven photobooks between 2016-2020, one per chapter of the epic.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
First edition
Design : Kummer&Herrman
112 pages + 13 inserts
51 photographs and 13 comic strips
24,5 x 30 cm
Section-sewn hardcover with trimmed edges
French / English
Publication date: 10 September 2018
ISBN: 979-10-96383-07-8
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Clémentine Schneidermann

I called her Lisa-Marie

Portraits of fans on pilgrimage, captured by Clémentine Schneidermann, ready to cross the Atlantic to celebrate their idol.

Liz named her daughter Lisa Marie, just like Elvis Presley’s daughter. French photographer Clémentine Schneidermann met Liz in Newport, Wales, a few miles away from the world’s largest festival to “the king”. Each year Liz joins tens of thousands of fans at the seaside resort of Porthcawl to celebrate the life and music of their icon, Elvis Presley.

From 2013 to 2017, Schneidermann joined too, creating portraits of fans Alison and her son, Steve, Samantha and Ian – among many others, for her series I Called her Lisa Marie. Schneidermann spent a lot of time with these people, using her camera to capture the poignancy of this flamboyant gathering where the life and music of the king offers a moment of solace.

Schneidermann is based in Cardiff, and travelled with the Alison and her son from Wales to where it all began in Memphis. She met the pair at the festival, where Alison’s son was performing under the stage name Johnny B. Goode. Schneidermann documented their pilgrimage across the Atlantic, creating Johnny B. Goode, a visual travel diary that is presented with I Called her Lisa Marie here in her first monograph.

Clémentine Schneidermann (born in 1991) is a French photographer living and working between Paris and South Wales. She works on long-term projects and commissions and is interested in new creative practices in social documentary photography. Her approach is collaborative and playful, with an interest in communities, childhood as well as our relationship to identity and culture. She is a co-founder of Ffasiwn Stiwdio, a photography-based creative studio that creates workshops, publications, films, and exhibitions with youth groups.
First edition
Editorial direction: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi
Editing & sequencing: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi & Vasantha Yogananthan
Design: Studio Julia
Text: Clémentine Schneidermann & Johnny B.Goode
80 pages + 16-page leaflet
39 plates
25 x 25 cm
Section-sewn OTA-bound softcover
English / French
ISBN: 979-10-96383-05-4
Publication date: 11 May 2018
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

The Promise

In this second chapter of his project A Myth of Two Souls, Vasantha Yogananthan tells the love of the story’s two heroes.

The Promise is the second chapter of Vasantha Yogananthan’s long-term project A Myth of Two Souls, which offers a contemporary retelling of The Ramayana. A seven-chapter tale first recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana is one of the founding epics of Hindu mythology.

Since 2013, Yogananthan has been travelling from north to south India, retracing the itinerary of the epic’s heroes. Between fiction and reality, he deliberately blurs the lines through multiple aesthetic approaches: colour, hand-painted and illustrated photographs are interspersed with vernacular images to compose the layers of this timeless story.

This second book celebrates the love between Rama and Sita, the two main characters of the story. Their union, a festive but challenging event, is strongly embedded in the collective imagination in India and Nepal. The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted through time, and for Yoganathan’s book has been retold by Indian writer Arshia Sattar.

A Myth of Two Souls will be published in seven photobooks between 2016-2020, one per chapter of the epic.
Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
First edition
Graphic design: Kummer&Herrman
Text: Arshia Sattar
116 pages
63 plates
24,5 x 30 cm
Section-sewn hardcover
French / English
Publication date: 18 April 2017
ISBN: 979-10-96383-01-6
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Katrin Koenning, Sarker Protick

Astres Noirs

Like a journey crafted with four hands, Astres Noirs is a luminous breakthrough that reveals traces, faces, and the world’s hidden dust.

Astres noirs is the debut book for both Katrin Koenning and Sarker Protick, artists who live thousands of miles apart whose peculiar photographic wanderings create a hauntingly beautiful dialogue. This book presents photographs taken on mobile phone cameras, devices used to capture their everyday in an impulsive and almost obsessional way, documenting life from their doorsteps to far afield.

Their photographs capture the commonplace such as water stains on asphalt, dust clouds and rays of light, and transform these into mesmerising frames – elusive fragments that evoke an imaginary creature, a milky way, a phosphorescent silhouette…

Presented together, their combined voices lead us on a journey into unexplored territory, somewhere between the everyday and paranormal, between night and day. Amongst enveloping darkness, lightness is revealed, dazzling and miraculously caught by discerning eyes.

Katrin Koenning (born in 1978 in Dortmund, Germany) lives and works in Naarm, Australia.
She studied documentary photography at the Queensland College of Art, at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia). Pursuing intimacy and interconnection, Katrin Koenning's work centres around practice as relational encounter. In her extended image-dialogues, Katrin uses fragments and slippages to suggest narrative spaces and communities that are fluid and multiplicit
Sarker Protick (born in 1986 in Dhaka, Bangladesh) studied at the South Asian Media Institute – Pathshala in Dhaka, where he is also teaching for the last ten years.
Sarker Protick’s work frequently build the narrative around the trope of change; momentary stillness, fleeting light, elemental origins of a place. To make the decaying memory tangible, to define disappearing history of a place without confining it, Protick’s often minimal, suspended and atmospheric visuals are coherently open with vast and solemn distance.
First édition
Concept and editing: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi & Vasantha Yogananthan
Graphic design: Atelier Pentagon
168 pages
79 duotone plates
16 cm x 22 cm
Section-sewn hardcover
English / French
Publication date: 31 May 2016
ISBN: 978-2-9548777-2-3
Winner Australian Photobook of the Year Grand Prize 2016 Shortlisted 2016 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards (First Book Category) Shortlisted Prix Nadar 2016
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Katrin Koenning, Sarker Protick

Astres Noirs 2

Like a journey crafted with four hands, Astres Noirs is a luminous breakthrough that reveals traces, faces, and the world’s hidden dust.

Astres noirs is the debut book for both Katrin Koenning and Sarker Protick, artists who live thousands of miles apart whose peculiar photographic wanderings create a hauntingly beautiful dialogue. This book presents photographs taken on mobile phone cameras, devices used to capture their everyday in an impulsive and almost obsessional way, documenting life from their doorsteps to far afield.

Their photographs capture the commonplace such as water stains on asphalt, dust clouds and rays of light, and transform these into mesmerising frames – elusive fragments that evoke an imaginary creature, a milky way, a phosphorescent silhouette…

Presented together, their combined voices lead us on a journey into unexplored territory, somewhere between the everyday and paranormal, between night and day. Amongst enveloping darkness, lightness is revealed, dazzling and miraculously caught by discerning eyes.

Katrin Koenning (born in 1978 in Dortmund, Germany) lives and works in Naarm, Australia.
She studied documentary photography at the Queensland College of Art, at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia). Pursuing intimacy and interconnection, Katrin Koenning's work centres around practice as relational encounter. In her extended image-dialogues, Katrin uses fragments and slippages to suggest narrative spaces and communities that are fluid and multiplicit
Sarker Protick (born in 1986 in Dhaka, Bangladesh) studied at the South Asian Media Institute – Pathshala in Dhaka, where he is also teaching for the last ten years.
Sarker Protick’s work frequently build the narrative around the trope of change; momentary stillness, fleeting light, elemental origins of a place. To make the decaying memory tangible, to define disappearing history of a place without confining it, Protick’s often minimal, suspended and atmospheric visuals are coherently open with vast and solemn distance.
Second edition
Concept et editing: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi, Vasantha Yogananthan
Design graphique : Atelier Pentagon
168 pages
91 photographies noir et blanc
16 cm x 22 cm
Couverture rigide dos carré cousu
français / anglais
Publication date: April 2017
ISBN: 979-10-96383-03-0
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Shoji Ueda

Shoji Ueda

The first trilingual monograph of this sedentary adventurer, one of the masters of Japanese photography.

Shoji Ueda (1913-2000), one of Japanese photography’s most remarkable figures, remained profoundly attached to his birthplace of Tottori, on the Sea of Japan, which he used as a backdrop for the vast majority of his work.

Ueda was a sedentary adventurer, ceaselessly exploring the dunes that sculpted the landscape throughout the seasons. His keen eye was drawn to everything around him: a map of the world, a wheat field caressed by the wind, a boy in roller skates, the graceful figure of his wife, Norie…When Ueda wasn’t out wandering, he composed still lives of seasonal fruit and incongruous objects, small treasures found here and there.

This publication is the first trilingual monograph devoted to his work, and brings together a great many previously unpublished photographs, in both black and white and colour. For the occasion, Chose Commune has given carte blanche to the writer Toshiyuki Horie (Yukinuma and Its Environs, The Bear And The Paving Stone), whose text is like musical notes resonating with the photographer’s distinctive universe.

Shoji Ueda (born 1913 in Sakaiminato in Japan and died 2000) is one of the great figures in the history of Japanese photography. At the age of 15, his father bought him his first camera, and in 1932 he graduated from the Tokyo Oriental Photography School. Until his death in 2000, he devoted his life to photography in his native region, far from the profusion of Tokyo, claiming to be an amateur. Known for his distinctive ‘Ueda cho’ style, he is best known for his famous series of photographs taken in the surreal setting of the sand dunes of his native Tottori prefecture.
Second edition
Graphic design: Atelier Pentagon
Short story by Toshiyuki Horie
188 pages
90 duotone and colour plates
22 cm x 29 cm
Section-sewn debossed hardcover
English / French / Japanese
Publication date: October 2015 for the first edition
ISBN : 978-2-9548777-1-6
Nominated at Prix Nadar 2015. Selected as Best Book 2015 by Simon Baker, Sonia Berger, Yumi Goto & Tomoki Matsumoto. Nominated at Kassel Fotobookfestival 2016 by Alec Soth (Magnum Photos): "If I was a critic, I could probably articulate why this book is so successful. I’m sure I would mention the editor’s keen sequencing and the designer’s exquisite craftsmanship. But I’m not a critic, and my love of this book is not analytical. I treasure Ueda the way I treasure my favorite music: it makes me feel good. And no other book has made me feel this good in the last year." Shortlisted for Arles Historical Book Award 2016.
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Piémanson

This is the first book published by Chose Commune. Piémanson is a five-summer exploration of France’s last wild beach.

“Piémanson” is an exploration of daily life on the last wild beach in France. The beach’s history began in the 1970s when locals set up camp there with no rights or deeds.

Nowadays, thousands of campers from all over Europe get together every summer season, looking for a freedom that they can’t find anywhere else. Vasantha Yogananthan camped with the inhabitants of Piémanson for five summers, from 2009 to 2013. This book tells their story.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
First edition
Graphic design: Atelier 25
Photographs and text: Vasantha Yogananthan
Essay: Rémi Coignet
80 pages
35 colour plates
23 x 28 cm
Section-sewn quarterbound card hardcover with cloth spine
French / English
Publication date: June 2014
ISBN: 978-2-9548777-0-9
Nominated at Kassel Best Photobook Award 2014, Prix Nadar 2014, Prix du livre des Rencontres d'Arles 2015. Selected as Best Book 2014 by Andy Adams.
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Masako Tomiya

Kito

Masako Tomiya follows the passage of time through nature’s renewal and births, where the figure of the woman is omnipresent.

Masako Tomiya is a photographer originally from the region of Aomori, north Japan. She has lived in Tokyo for years, and one day, she received news that her sister and sister-in-law, who live near her hometown, were both pregnant. This news inspired Tomiya’s series Kito, a reflection on identity, family, transmission and the passing of time.

“Kito” means “homeward” in Japanese. Inverted, “toki” takes on a completely different meaning: “time”. In her poetic series, Tomiya plays with this dual sense. Her reflective photographic journey is undertaken with a subtle meditation on nature, and its seasonal transformation, alongside a representation of human life through women. Tomiya stages self-portraits and captures the daily lives of her mother, sisters and new-borns, to explore how her sense of home has altered with time.

I’ve lived my life asking myself
“What am I? What is this world?”
For a long time, I wandered without answers, and before I knew it I was older.
Had time flown by, or was it all a dream resembling a memory?
This story transcends time and meaning and self
by staring down the idea of “myself.”

Masako Tomiya (born in 1981 in Japan) began photography during her high school years, and then studied in Osaka and Tokyo in the 2000s. From that time on, she began taking photographs of the Tsugaru region, where she was born.
First edition
Design: Bureau Kayser
Essay: Masako Tomiya
Cover artwork: Satsuki Shibuya
80 pages
38 plates
22 x 27 cm
Hardcover, swiss binding
French / English / Japanese
Publication date: 30 June 2017
ISBN: 979-10-96383-02-3
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Exile

In this third chapter of his project A Myth of Two Souls, Vasantha Yogananthan tells the story of the two heroes’ exile.

“Exile” is the third chapter of Vasantha Yogananthan’s long-term project A Myth of Two Souls, which offers a contemporary retelling of The Ramayana. A seven-chapter tale first recorded by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 BC, The Ramayana is one of the founding epics of Hindu mythology.

Since 2013, Yogananthan has been travelling from north to south India, retracing the itinerary of the epic’s heroes. Between fiction and reality, he deliberately blurs the lines through multiple aesthetic approaches: colour, hand-painted and illustrated photographs are interspersed with vernacular images to compose the layers of this timeless story.

The end of chapter two announces that Rama is banished from the kingdom, forced to live in exile during fourteen years. The third chapter tells about Rama’s life in the forest, where he is joined by Sita and his brother Lakshmana. The Ramayana has been continuously rewritten and reinterpreted through time, and for Yoganathan’s book has been retold by Indian writer Arshia Sattar.

A Myth of Two Souls will be published in seven photobooks between 2016-2020, one per chapter of the epic.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
First edition
Graphic design: Kummer&Herrman
Text: Arshia Sattar
192 pages (Japanese binding)
51 photographs
24,5 x 30 cm
Section-sewn OTA-bound softcover
French / English
Publication date: 1 September 2017
ISBN: 979-10-96383-04-7
Shortlisted for Arles Photo-Text Book Award 2018 Shortlisted Nuit du Livre 2018
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Shoji Ueda

Shōji Ueda

Shoji Ueda (1913-2000), one of Japanese photography’s most remarkable figures, remained profoundly attached to his birthplace of Tottori, on the Sea of Japan, which he used as a backdrop for the vast majority of his work.

Ueda was a sedentary adventurer, ceaselessly exploring the dunes that sculpted the landscape throughout the seasons. His keen eye was drawn to everything around him: a map of the world, a wheat field caressed by the wind, a boy in roller skates, the graceful figure of his wife, Norie…When Ueda wasn’t out wandering, he composed still lives of seasonal fruit and incongruous objects, small treasures found here and there.

This publication is the first trilingual monograph devoted to his work, and brings together a great many previously unpublished photographs, in both black and white and colour. For the occasion, Chose Commune has given carte blanche to the writer Toshiyuki Horie (Yukinuma and Its Environs, The Bear And The Paving Stone), whose text is like musical notes resonating with the photographer’s distinctive universe.

Shoji Ueda (born 1913 in Sakaiminato in Japan and died 2000) is one of the great figures in the history of Japanese photography. At the age of 15, his father bought him his first camera, and in 1932 he graduated from the Tokyo Oriental Photography School. Until his death in 2000, he devoted his life to photography in his native region, far from the profusion of Tokyo, claiming to be an amateur. Known for his distinctive ‘Ueda cho’ style, he is best known for his famous series of photographs taken in the surreal setting of the sand dunes of his native Tottori prefecture.
Edition of 30, comprising a first edition book with one of three inkjet prints (18 x 24 cm, stamped and numbered on the reverse), housed together in a 24 x 31,5 cm embossed clamshell box.
Nominated at Prix Nadar 2015. Nominated at Kassel Fotobookfestival 2016 by Alec Soth (Magnum Photos): "If I was a critic, I could probably articulate why this book is so successful. I’m sure I would mention the editor’s keen sequencing and the designer’s exquisite craftsmanship. But I’m not a critic, and my love of this book is not analytical. I treasure Ueda the way I treasure my favorite music: it makes me feel good. And no other book has made me feel this good in the last year." Selected as Best Book 2015 by Simon Baker, Sonia Berger, Yumi Goto & Tomoki Matsumoto.
Free shipping to France on orders over 50€

Vasantha Yogananthan

Exile

Edition of 21 comprising a first edition book with one of two inkjet prints by Vasantha Yogananthan (21 x 25 cm, signed and numbered on the reverse), housed together in a 32 x 26 cm clamshell box, handmade by La Reliure Contemporaine (Morina Mongin).
Each box is unique and may look slightly different from the picture.

Vasantha Yogananthan (born in 1985 in Grenoble) lives and works in Marseille.
He is a self-taught photographer who is deeply attached to silver photography. The book is a central object in his practice, which led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune. He has carried out his projects over a long period of time, first in France on the beach at Piémanson (2009-2013), then in India and Sri Lanka Sri-Lanka around the myth of the Rāmāyana (2013-2021). In 2022, he carries out a new project in New Orleans, USA, as part of the Immersion program of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, of which it is a winner. He is represented by Jhavery contemporary (Mumbay) and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London).
Your Cart (0)
Your cart is empty