Speak Quickly is a photographic recording of the quarantine conversations between two artists
The book captures the strange, wordless exchange the two shared from their respective hometowns, Amsterdam and Beijing. It has been converted into a series of split screen postcards published by Atelier Éditions that others can tear out and forward.
The author Kingston Trinder has compiled the image archive into a kind of bizarre narrative and brought together photographs that somehow resonate with one another. A picture of a woman doing gymnastics appears next to a boy leaning over a wooden tub and scraps of dishes – apparently cut out of a catalog – sit happily together. Another page shows a (bad) taxidermized seal under a plastic representation of the animal.
It is characteristic of the work of the curator, artist and KesselsKramer co-founder, Kessels, who uses frequently found images to uncover a more surreal side of photography – like his book series In Almost Every Picture. Sauvin has also been collecting photography for years and started the Beijing Silvermine project to salvage 800,000 negatives that were acquired over a 20-year period and originally intended for recycling.
There is a title on the back of each postcard that gives the collection a vaguely poetic sensibility. According to the editor, readers can tear out any postcards to restore the duo's original dialogue and flip them over to see the "abstract story" created by the titles on the other side.
Talk Soon is published by Atelier Éditions for $ 36. atelier-editions.com