RVB Books – förlag

Hallways brings together a series of photographs taken by Romain Laprade in the entrance halls of Parisian residential buildings constructed between the 1960s and the 1980s. Wandering through Paris for several years, the photographer has documented these often overlooked interiors, revealing a rich visual language of mosaics, geometric patterns, colours, reflections and sculptural details. Detached from their architectural context, the halls become autonomous spaces where sensory experience takes precedence over documentary reading. Conceived as a visual journey, Hallways offers a sensitive immersion into the spatial experimentations of the post-war period, with a text by Jean-Claude Girard.

On February 9, 2020 in Mexico City, a 25-year-old woman named Ingrid E. V was murdered by her companion. Grisly photographs of this femicide committed by Erik Francisco Robledo Rosas, taken at the scene of the crime by the authorities, were avidly circulated by Mexican tabloids, which had no qualms in plastering the young woman’s dismembered body across their front pages. This opportunistic move by the gutter press, and the complicity of the police in making it possible, sparked a wave of protests. Spurred by a tweet to do their part in ridding the internet of these gruesome images, social media users around the world posted numerous photos of peaceful lakes, sunsets, fields of flowers and other scenes of natural beauty under the hashtag #IngridEscamillaVargas. Moved by this collaborative effort, Zoé Aubry, who has been working on the systemic and structural phenomenon of femicides and the issues raised by their media coverage since 2017, has produced a book that pays homage to the memory of Ingrid Escamilla Vargas, denounces violence against women, and assails the voyeurism of a certain segment of the press.

With VERSO Thomas Sauvin revisits his collection of ID photos amassed in China over the last fifteen years. By exposing them to a strong light source, the characters inscribed on the back of the prints show through by transparency and materialize on unfamiliar faces.

BETTER FOOD FOR OUR FIGHTING MEN contains a selection of images, produced mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, from the archives of the U. S. Army’s Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center near Boston, Massachusetts. The center is still operational today, and employs both military personnel and civilian contractors in its mission to improve the daily lives—and diets—of American soldiers. For the world’s most formidable army, feeding the troops is fraught with logistical, psychological and food safety challenges. Bacteria is an enemy; supply chains are vital, intricate delivery systems. The goal is to provide sustenance and boost morale across the full range of terrain and troop configurations, from mess halls for the officers and selfservice buffets for the rank-and-file to battlefield canteens and survival rations for commandos behind enemy lines. Solving this logistical puzzle is like trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole: once you have devised ways to optimize the daily nutritional requirements of the bodies in question, you need to work out the best solutions for preserving and transporting the food, and still guarantee a minimum level of flavor to keep the soldiers happy. A glossary with 24 entries explains some of the acronyms used in the image captions, describes the staples of a typical soldier’s diet and traces the new technologies that enabled the food industry to manufacture and supply those rations.

In 2021, invited by the French artist Thomas Mailaender for a residency at Tuba Club in the Calanques National Park in southern Marseille, Julien Berthier took an old boat and topped it with a calanque-inspired slab of rock sculpted in the same resin as the boat’s hull. Once placed in the water, the work became practically invisible and gave the installation its title. Continuing his reflections on landscape, Berthier’s book “The Invisible Journey” incorporates the rock-boat across a set of postcards, in the same manner: both visible and invisible. Low tech by choice, Berthier cut out images of the boat manually, then glue them directly to the postcards. The rock-boat thus embarks on a tour of various places and eras, accompanying the travel accounts of strangers.

In October 2022, after a period dedicated to collage and image manipulation, Thomas Lélu decided to return to his origins, and began a series of sentences that he simply wrote down in a notebook with a ballpoint pen. From then on, he began a daily exercise of writing a minimum of 5 sentences in sketchbooks. A total of over 500 sentences to date. Sometimes funny or witty, often caustic and provocative, they invite the reader to reflect on our times and its excesses.

In a context of contemporary warfare, drones are increasingly used as tools and machines for control, surveillance, and repression, becoming more and more technologically sophisticated. Through a selection of images collected from various channels, active in most modern conflicts (Syria, Libya, Mali, Central Africa and Ukraine), the book questions the ways war is represented. Where journalistic images are often framed, if not suppressed, by the belligerents and tend to lose relevance, they are gradually being replaced by these machine-produced images. The book brings together documentary images on which the author intervenes only minimally. It is not question of creation here but more on how representing reality.

Invited by Belmond to create a photography book devoted to Splendido, in Sicilia, Chris Rhodes stayed at the Portofino hotel to capture the spirit and distinctive character that have shaped its reputation. His work focuses on the details that define the identity of the place: textures, materials, floral arrangements, pieces of furniture, and a selection of portraits. True to his precise and attentive approach, Rhodes photographs the hotel through a meticulous observation of objects, colours, and everyday gestures. The resulting body of work offers a reading of Splendido that is both sensitive and rigorous, each image seeking to reveal what makes the hotel unique beyond its iconic views.

Jeano Edwards was invited by Belmond, a luxury hotel group, to create a book about Cap Juluca, a stunning hotel in Anguilla. Looking for a fresh take on travel photography, he moves beyond just documenting the place, focusing instead on details and abstract elements, breaking away from typical portrayals of the island. Without human presence, his photos capture a sense of calm and mystery, evoking moments of grace, like faded memories touched by time. Jeano also invited author Ryan Hart to join the project, bringing a poetic touch that enriches the book’s contemporary feel.

Famed for restoring historic properties, Belmond luxury
hotel group is now collaborating with world-leading contemporary photographers to create bodies of work responding to their destinations, carefully pairing each artist with the personality of the chosen hotel. Coco Capitán photographed the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express in spring 2023 and winter 2024.Coco Capitán doesn’t like planes. Instead, she loves nothing more than classical forms of transportation – sailboats, yachts, vintage cars and, of course, the archetypal train journey. So when Capitán was invited to photograph the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express – with its original 1920s carriages and historic routes throughout Europe – she couldn’t say no. While on board the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Capitán took the most instinctive approach, that of a curious traveller taking a trip with friends. Within the series, the relationship Capitán has built with the staff is interchangeable with the existing bond with her friends who join her on the journey. Images fluctuate from playful snapshots to thoughtful moments of contemplation.Capitán’s photographs and the series title remind us that, amongst the glamour, the pilgrimage is just as important as the destination. Each minute should be treasured, no matter how silly or trivial it can feel, because this new reality is fleeting, and will soon belong to someone else.

In this new publication, Tiane Doan na Champassak works on his own collection of Parkett, a seminal art magazine issued between 1984 and 2017. His subtle approach consists of isolating a considerable amount of double-spreads displaying gallery advertisements, all from the first five years of Parkett. Coherent in style and form, these ads are works of art in their own right, reflecting the supremacy of text over image in the conceptual production of those years. In their simple yet sophisticated appeal, they trace an alternative history of postmodern and contemporary art, marking the recurrence of certain artists – such as Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Heizer, Louise Bourgeois, Ed Ruscha, Richard Prince, Anish Kapoor, and Cindy Sherman, among many others – in the galleries’ landscape of the 1980s.

Other People by David Horvitz is a series of digital photographs gathered online using facial recognition software. By searching with images of his own face, Horvitz uncovered mismatches: photographs of strangers mistakenly identified by artificial intelligence as him. These images raise questions about the ethical gray areas of image databases, often monetized without the knowledge or consent of those depicted. Drawing inspiration from research on training materials used by East German border guards at Checkpoint Charlie, preserved in the Wende Museum's collection, this project explores the implications of technology and identity in the age of artificial intelligence.

Invited by Belmond to create a photographic book on the Andean Explorer, Colin Dodgson traveled across the Peruvian Andes aboard this luxury train linking Cusco to Arequipa. His vision captures the atmosphere of the journey, from majestic landscapes to everyday details, with iconic stops such as Lake Titicaca, the Colca Canyon, and the La Raya market. Rather than documenting the journey in a conventional way, he seeks to capture its essence and fleeting impressions. His approach, blending intuition and experimentation, aligns perfectly with Belmond’s limited-edition book series, which invites contemporary photographers to move beyond mere representation of places and offer an artistic and singular vision.

Invited by Belmond to create a photographic book on the Andean Explorer, Colin Dodgson traveled across the Peruvian Andes aboard this luxury train linking Cusco to Arequipa. His vision captures the atmosphere of the journey, from majestic landscapes to everyday details, with iconic stops such as Lake Titicaca, the Colca Canyon, and the La Raya market. Rather than documenting the journey in a conventional way, he seeks to capture its essence and fleeting impressions. His approach, blending intuition and experimentation, aligns perfectly with Belmond’s limited-edition book series, which invites contemporary photographers to move beyond mere representation of places and offer an artistic and singular vision.

Paris 2024 presents a series of photographs of historic Parisian buildings undergoing restoration. Duringconstruction, the façades are hidden behind printed tarpaulins — showing either oversized advertisements orphotographic reproductions of the buildings themselves.These temporary surfaces create illusionistic décors that conceal both the scaffolding and the transformation ofthe city. The images highlight this ambiguity, between stone and PVC, reality and representation.From Haussmann’s urban reforms to the Grand Paris project, the series reflects on a constantly evolving city andreveals the hidden mechanisms that shape its appearance — one façade at a time.

With Architecture à emporter, designer and interior architect Marion Mailaender opens a new collectionexploring design in all its forms — from architecture to DIY and open-source practices. This first volumecelebrates the beauty of the unfinished and views construction as a creative process in motion. Using simple,low-cost materials usually hidden from view, Mailaender creates functional light fixtures that elevate theaesthetics of the building site. The book includes plans for four models, offered as starting points to be adaptedand reimagined — an invitation to see architecture not as fixed, but as something to carry, transform, andreinvent.

Le Crépuscule des lieux presents 94 photographs by Letizia Le Fur, taken in abandoned houses and châteaux still marked by human presence. Her tightly framed compositions fragment interiors to reveal subtle, quietly beautiful details. Lines intersect, patterns overlap, and volumes flatten under the flash, creating a sense of gentle strangeness, reinforced by her meticulous use of color.The book’s design mirrors this vision. Using Japanese binding, each photograph is shown in full, preceded and/or followed by a fragment of another image. This layout creates a distinctive visual rhythm, where images echo, connect, and respond to one another.

When the forest of Notre-Dame caught fire, Lola Raban-Oliva and Jean René Etienne were at home, just two kilometers away. Each had their own camera, their own zoom lens. From their window, it became almost possible to imagine the perspective of birds. It was no longer Notre-Dame burning, nor even a cathedral. Not a fire, but a vast disruption of the aerial space. A thick, blazing, chaotic convective column rose above the heart of Paris.Les oiseaux brings together 97 screenshots taken from the footage they captured that evening.

SUMER is a striking collaboration between photographer Óscar Monzón and writer Arthur Larrue. Bringing image and text together on equal terms, the book blends a powerful photographic series with a dystopian narrative set in a hyper-connected world-city shaped by highways, flows, and consumer culture. Through the marginal figures of Óscar and Gabrielle, the project explores themes of exclusion, control, and desire. Combining strong visual storytelling with a compelling literary voice, SUMER offers a distinctive and immersive reading experience at the crossroads of photography, fiction, and contemporary social critique.

Tara L. C. Sood is a French-Indian photographer and filmmaker based between London, Paris, and India. Her work, primarily focused on people, often blurs the boundaries between staged imagery and documentary while embracing a distinctly cinematic perspective. Favouring hand-printed analogue photographs produced in the darkroom, archival materials, and a rich colour palette informed by her Indian heritage, her personal practice seeks to offer new ways of understanding the past and moving beyond its stereotypes. Tara is the second recipient of Belmond’s photographic residency. She was invited to undertake a carte blanche project in Sicily at the prestigious Villa Sant’ Andrea.

Invited by Belmond to create a photography book devoted to Maroma, in Mexico, Jack Davison stayed at the Riviera Maya hotel to explore its singular atmosphere. His attention extends as much to the architecture as to its most elusive details: plays of light and shadow, surfaces, silhouettes, and traces of presence. Alternating portraits, fragments of objets, and closely cropped views, Davison assembles a body of work that shifts the conventional perception of Maroma. This project aligns with Belmond’s limited-edition book series, which invites contemporary photographers to move beyond mere representation of places and offer an artistic and singular vision.

Mirror Mirror is a project that explores our relationship to images, reflection, and involuntary staging through a collection of photographs sourced from second-hand selling platforms. The artist’s protocol is simple: contact sellers and ask them for an image of the mirror they are offering for sale.This seemingly innocuous request introduces a constraint: to produce an image of the mirror while avoiding, as much as possible, any reflection in the glass.Sellers then develop strategies of avoidance—sometimes skillful, sometimes absurd, often marked by ingenuity or awkwardness.

One Minute brings together sixty photographs of a Casio F91W watch face, taken in sequence over the course of a single minute, from 03:06:00 to 03:06:59. Through this simple protocol, Thomas Pierre and Misha Zavalny give tangible form to a minute, turning a universal unit of measurement into a sensory experience. The book invites readers to consider time not as an abstraction, but as a shared reality, experienced differently by each individual.

Alix Lacloche is a chef and culinary scenographer, dedicated to creating healthy, flavourful cuisine staged with particular attention to visual pleasure. Sugar Crush is the second volume in a series dedicated to design in all its forms—architecture, objects, fashion—as well as DIY and open-source practices. Following AAP by designer and interior architect Marion Mailaender, this book reveals the gestures and know-how behind Lacloche’s sugar tableware series, entirely handmade in her studio.

Inspired by the mythologies and artistic movements that have shaped the Forest of Fontainebleau, this photography book recounts the memories of the landscape as a comic and philosophical tale. The book brings together a series of staged scenes, composing a visual journey in which reality, history, and different eras intertwine. Along the way: a fatal boulder, an abandoned château, a tightrope-walking hiker, a lost knight, a hobby painter, the memory of Cocteau… and a touch of magic. A walk through the woods where everything seems perfectly ordinary, yet, from an excess of oxygen, the mind begins to wander.

Erwin Wurm is best known for his broader sculptural practice, this book focuses on his “Dust Sculptures,” a pivotal body of work from the early 1990s. Around 1990, Wurm reached what he called a “point zero of sculpture,” reducing form to its most minimal trace. Instead of traditional objects, he created the appearance of dust residues left behind after an object is removed. Using stencils and vacuum-cleaner dust, he fabricated these traces on sidewalks, chairs, and urban surfaces. Between 1990 and 1994, he photographed these fragile interventions as “photographic sculptures.” The works present absence itself: invented evidence of presence, where dust becomes the sculptural material. Photography is their only lasting form.

Soren is Lola Raban’s nephew by marriage. Over the last ten years she has photographed him between Martinique and Paris. They both share a fascination for making images, from opposite sides of the camera. Soren, the book, tells a story of the boy, of his characters and of time passing.Lola Raban’s work is often drawn to the space where the real and the constructed become difficult to tell apart. These photographs are always posed, always deliberate, and yet they carry the weight of something real about Soren. What has grown between him and Lola over the years is hard to name, and this book is the story of that.

Gone Fishing tells the modern tale, through the form of a fictional correspondence, of a young man who prefers to go on holidays with his mates rather than bow to his new responsibilities as a father. As the letters progress, Thomas Mailaender paints the unflattering portrait of an adolescent, Ulysses, more inspired by beer, big-game fishing and table-tennis than by the joys of fatherhood. Each of the nineteen letters is illustrated by a portrait of the young father carrying out an appallingly banal exploit that is supposed to excuse his absence. These images are photomontages the artist has made from amateur photos he collected on the internet.

The work Two Donkeys in a War Zone finds its source in a video of the U. S. Army available on Youtube. A drone follows an attack against an Isis camp. Between two explosions, the infrared camera briefly highlights two donkeys. This intrusion of two animals unintentionally witnessing human violence had me look for drone strike videos produced by the U. S. , Afghan or British army with moments or details that do not belong to the combat but are instead a part of ‘ normal life ’, the off- camera’s of an asymmetrical war. These photographs of operative videos, supporting military propaganda, show the conflict through the drone’s eye. The operator is only looking for his target, but life carries on next to the explosion. These movements, instants of existence, signify humanity. Two donkeys in a war zone is a search, by cropping and subverting operative images, for traces of life inside pictures of death.