Five Continents Editions – serie

The fashion, history, and development of Jewish dress tells a story that spans the globe and crosses many cultures. In this colourful volume, Jewish communities - particularly those established for centuries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa - are revealed through their garments. Stunning photographs spin tales of family traditions and religious devotion, with a special section dedicated to jewellery worn by brides and grooms. Superb photographs of specific garments, with many close-up details, are juxtaposed with rare contextual photographs from The Israel Museum's archives to create a tapestry of a people revealed through textiles, costume, and images. More than 350 revelatory illustrations tell us how these precious articles of dress were originally worn.

Inspired by the teachings and research of Patricia Fortini Brown, a renowned scholar of Venetian art and history, these beautifully illustrated essays by leading scholars address topics ranging from painted Venetian narrative cycles of the late 15th century to the rebuilding of the Campanile in the early 20th century. This book was derived from papers given at the Giorgione Symposium held at Princeton University on the occasion of Fortini Brown's recent retirement. The superb study offers new reflections on artists as diverse as Andrea Mantegna, the Bellini family, Giorgione, Pietro Lombardo, Paolo Veronese, Andrea Palladio, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

This A3-format title brings together a selection of 50 exhibition posters designed by Werner Jeker (Les Ateliers du Nord, Lausanne) presented at the Collection de l’Art Brut between 1976 and 2026. This renowned Lausanne-based German-Swiss graphic artist has worked with the museum since it opened and is also responsible for the layout of this publication. The Collection de l’Art Brut would like to take advantage of this project to show its appreciation of this fruitful collaboration spanning five decades.Text in English and French.

One of the first people in Europe to consider the gifts which the Aztec ruler Montezuma gave to Hérnan Cortés as works of art was Albrecht Dürer: 'Nothing I have yet seen has given me such joy as the objects brought to the king from the new gold countries [...] Some pieces display an extraordinary skill; I have been astonished by the ingenuity of the inhabitants of those far distant lands,' he wrote. It was 1520 and those works had been sent to Brussels. The five centuries that have passed since the beauty of these objects was first noticed seem not to have been enough for the ancient cultures of Latin America to be fully understood. This catalogue of pre-Columbian art is a fresh attempt to examine and come to terms with artworks produced by a section of mankind that came to the attention of Europeans only after the voyages of Columbus and other explorers. It illustrates the collection of pre-Columbian art of Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue, one of the few collections of its kind in Italian hands: over 150 pieces from Mesoamerica and South America, an extraordinary corpus of objects which give testament to the excellence achieved by ancient artists. But it also tells the story of certain rare objects which belonged to the Medici Collection, one of Europe's greatest treasures. Among these are two atlatls, spear-throwers covered in gold-leaf from the Aztec or Mixtec cultures, a Taíno necklace dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and a Teotihuacan stone mask. These objects are accompanied by pieces from private European collections and a number of significant artworks from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. Essays by leading scholars and archaeologists, such as C. Phillips, C.F. Baudez, J.M. Hoppan, J.J. Leyenard, F. Kauffmann Doig, C. Cavatrunci, D. Domenica, and M. Polia, weave both scientific and humanistic interpretations of Amerindian thought. The Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue Collection of masterpieces of ancient Latin American cultures is part of a huge and broad-ranging hoard of objects gathered over a period of almost fifty years.

Noire Idole is an immersive journey into a sophisticated world, both in terms of the choice of subject matter and form and as regards the way these are given artistic expression. The gear on the set lets the imagination and virtuosity of the craftsmen run riot. None of the objects are fake; they exude a natural perfection whose mirror image is simply reflected back to us.It is also a sensory journey into the shadows, alongside the reclining smoker. The choice of a black background transforms reality. The outlines of the furnishings become blurred, vision becomes clouded, the present is endlessly suspended.At the same time, it is a journey through memory, where drugs are merely a pretext for the narrative. Indochina appears within and between the lines. The author reveals his double loss: a vanished ritual and a dead dream, an unfulfilled French passion. Noire Idole is a collection of texts. A compendium brought together in the name of emotion, cultural exchange, and mutual fascination. The writing is leavened by contemporary pictures in the form of a collection of exceptional, previously unpublished photographs.

Featuring visionary creators from various fields, from art and contemporary dance to architecture and robotics, this lavishly illustrated book reports from the forefront of the crossdisciplinary synthesis that creates new forms of art. The project was initiated by Diana Vishneva, principal dancer for the American Ballet Theater in New York (2005-2017) and the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, and a tireless experimenter known for collaborations that have redefined the future of dance. The book presents interviews with choreographers William Forsythe and Carolyn Carlson; photographer Nick Knight; artists Bill Viola and Olafur Eliasson; architects Toyo Ito and Santiago Calatrava; robotics inventor Raffaello d'Andrea, and other creators who actively stretch the conventional limits of their fields. Included in the volume is a DVD of a film created for this project using state-of-the-art technologies to translate the language of dance into that of cinema.

Many of Gauguin’s portraits of Breton and Polynesian sitters, as well as his self-portraits, include inanimate objects. Intriguing as these are, the works in Paul Gauguin’s portrait gallery have never really been the subject of a thorough study. This book, first published in English in 2005, fills a gap in the scholarly literature on Gauguin, one of the leading figures in post-Impressionist art, with an in-depth, well-illustrated examination of his portraits. An array of experts on Gauguin’s art reflect on the symbolic attributes his models were endowed with, and the meaning behind the evocative settings he chose for them. The authors explore the many aspects of the artist’s portraits, often in light of the remarks he made about his models, and focus on their importance in relation to his larger oeuvre. This book, which is intended as a standard text in this field, includes essays written by experts in Gauguin’s work, all established scholars and researchers.Text in French.

Following on from the success of the exhibition Before Time Began,Fondation Opale is taking on a new challenge with a show that juxtaposes contemporary Aboriginal art with prominent examples of contemporary art created in a Western and Asian tradition. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes more than eighty works by over 54 artists from two separate collections, both of which are outstanding in their own right: the collection of Aboriginal art belonging to Bérengère Primat and the contemporary art collection amassed by Garance Primat. The works play off each other with powerful effect. Insightful pairings suggest an underlying unity, a merging of mankind, heaven, earth, and the whole cosmos.The Aboriginal artists represented include: Rover Thomas, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Judy Watson, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarrey, Paddy Bedford, Nonggirrnga Marawili, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and John Mawurndjul. The artists working in the Western and Oriental traditions include: Jean Dubuffet, Kiki Smith, Anselm Kiefer, Sol Lewitt, Yayoi Kusama, Giuseppe Penone, and Anish Kapoor.Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Opale, Lens - Crans Montana, 14 June 2020 - 4 April 4 2021.

Headrests from Southern Africa - The architecture of sleep presents the subject of southern African headrests in a fascinating new light. The book, richly illustrated – often with in situ photographs, offers unique historical and personal information collected from many of the original owners and carvers of the headrests. So, for the first time African headrests are brought to life with detailed information and the stories of their creation, ownership, use and significance.The 438 headrests from the collections of Bruce Goodall from Cape Town and Frédéric Zimer from Paris are presented according to 3 geographical areas: KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo (where the Ntwane people live) and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland).Since 2003, Goodall has made numerous field trips collecting, as well as interviewing and photographing the owners and carvers of headrests. In 2017, Goodall’s collection grew substantially with the purchase of a comprehensive collection of headrests from the Msinga area of KwaZulu-Natal. This collection had been assembled and meticulously documented by the late Anglican priest Clive Newman and his friend and assistant, Mavis Duma, between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s. The Zimer collection has been built up since the 1990s through his many travels in Africa, and his acquisitions from collectors and African art dealers around the world.This publication not only offers insight into the personal and historical dimensions of this important southern African tradition through the text written about the headrests and their owners by Bruce Goodall, but includes essays by Newman, Nel and Leibhammer and a text about collecting by Duma. Together these facilitate a penetrating understanding of these valued items as well as a respectful appreciation of the cultures and individuals who made and used them.

The red-figure vases from the National Museum “Domenico Ridola” in Matera and the Rizzon Collection – rich in precious Apulian and Lucanian pieces – offer a unique opportunity to grasp Magna Graecia antiquity from an unusual perspective through the photographs by Luigi Spina. Significant testimony to vase painting between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the museum's artefacts largely date back to the discoveries of Domenico Ridola (1841-1932) and form part of elaborate funerary assemblages, possessing great aesthetic and historical value through which everyday life is reflected in myths.In the book, black is the protagonist: it enhances the red figures and brings out the keen eye of photographer Luigi Spina. Anatomical details, drapery, and decorative motifs emerge in all their strength without the filter of museum cases, while touches of white enrich the vases' bichrome palette.Photographing a work of art means capturing its deep meaning to communicate it to the world. Far from the idea of a museum catalogue, the volume is rather a figurative atlas of antiquity.Text in English and Italian.

These previously unpublished images of New York's waterfront are presented here as part of a unique editorial project: the iconographic perspective is analysed and discussed in Pauline Vermare’s interview with Sophie Fenwick, and finds further literary development in the photographer’s poetry, on which she started working during the pandemic and is used here to accompany the visual narrative.     The language of photography is used here — in a series of black and white and colour shots — to retrace the memory of a transformation and to express the urgency of documentation that in these pages evolves from personal to universal. The invitation to travel voiced by Fenwick is visual poetry articulated in a series of pictures, each of which possesses the potential to become a true icon.Text in English and French.

Long awaited by collectors, scholars, and enthusiasts, this book illustrates the bronze pieces, most of which have never before been published, collected by Syrop during more than 40 years of passionate, attentive, and untiring research.An architect by profession and a collector by instinct, Arnold Syrop was a pioneer for his interest in this particular area of African material culture, developing what Susan Kloman in her introduction calls “one of the best eyes” in the field of African bronze artifacts.As remarked by the author/collector in his preface, these bronzes are for the most part “spiritual in nature,” their function being to protect and give strength to their owner.  Text in English and French.

The masks in this book, all presented by two or more images, are accompanied by brief commentaries that offer readers — be they scholars or enthusiasts — an insight into these veritable masterpieces of African art, which in most cases boast an exceptional pedigree, having been included in the most important international collections of extra-European art.Even though the works with which Zhang has chosen to surround himself are not all extra-European, as Marco Riccòmini explains in his introduction, offering a broader framework for the interpretation of Zhang’s esthetic choices, we have chosen to devote this elegant and carefully crafted publication to a specific aspect of African material culture.Text in English and French.

Joel Denot (b.1961) is a French photographer. His images are centred on the essential elements of photography: light, colour and shape. They are neither figurative nor abstract, with coloured surfaces floating in a void, framing each other and projecting shadows of overlapping colours: orange then pale pink then blue then bright pink; red then green then pink then grey-blue. Produced entirely during the shoot, they are a purely photographic gesture, created without laboratory work. This is the first monograph on his career.Text in English and French.

Who is Samantha McEwen?Who is this Anglo-American artist born in 1960 in London, about whom Keith Haring declares in one of his interviews: “When I arrived in New York, I spent my time at school (School of Visual Arts). Everything was new and exciting. I was 20 years old. In my drawing class, I was immediately drawn to a girl named Samantha McEwen.” Samantha remembers: “He sat in front of me and said: ‘Can I draw you?’”Who is this artist, still relatively unknown to this day, who also models for Francesco Clemente and Alex Katz? In the 1980s, Samantha McEwen was one of the few women to exhibit twice in the famous Tony Shafrazi Gallery. She also participates in numerous group exhibitions alongside the leading artists of that flamboyant decade. However, very few texts exist about her work; art critics are mainly men who write about men. In the numerous articles of the art press on these exhibitions, her name is merely mentioned and rarely accompanied by a few lines. A revealing paradox of that era, Samantha McEwen is found in full-page spreads in the fashion sections of major magazines, such as Interview (Andy Warhol's magazine) and The New York Times Magazine. By the late 1980s in New York, most of Samantha’s friends disappear, taken by AIDS or drugs. Samantha McEwen returns to live in London and begins (or simply continues) a long period of obscurity, like most female artists of those generations. It takes until the 2010s for her work to reappear. This happens in 2015 in London, in the famous group exhibition organised by Pace Gallery in homage to the great London art dealer Robert Fraser. 48 artists are presented, 45 men and 3 women.Text in English and French.

This monograph edited by Ilaria Bernardi is the first comprehensive examination of the oeuvre of the Italian artist Loris Cecchini, from his debut in the mid-1990s to the present. The publication coincides with the 30th anniversary of the artist’s first inclusion in an exhibition: in three group shows in 1995. The book reviews Cecchini’s solo and group exhibitions, providing information on awards, residencies and lectures, as well as extensive commentary on his most distinctive works. Alternating between photography, sculpture, drawing, digital processing and environmental installations, Cecchini’s aim is to shape real space by means of innovative materials, focusing on how matter holds together and the aesthetic, architectural, organic, and structural processes associated with it. He has a particular interest in industrial materials such as rubber, resin and steel. His work explores the sense of the real, in a perspective suspended between the natural and the man-made that challenges the viewer’s perception. This book reconstructs the trajectory of Cecchini's personal and creative life by interweaving biographical information, historical background and an ample selection of works, thus providing a unique contribution to the literature devoted to the artist.Text in English and French

Art of the Cameroon Grasslands unveils the artistic creativity of a region of West Africa through the Weis Collection. With texts by Peter Weis and Bettina von Lintig, and a contribution by Michael Oehrl, the book is a comprehensive overview of Grasslands Art. In contrast to many other African regions, the works of the artists of the ethnic groups that live in the Grasslands are characterised by enormous diversity, dynamism, movement, asymmetry, power, and even unbridled wildness. Other works radiate tranquillity, offering the viewer uncommon visual pleasure and delight. For centuries, kingdoms and rulers in this region competed with each other to create new works of art or perfect inherited styles. These works served cultural, profane, and representational purposes, and they reflected the social and ruling structures of the Grasslands—aspects that the book’s essays and descriptions explore in detail.A broad spectrum of objects and their uses are reflected in the Weis Collection. It includes everyday objects, works of folk art, ritual, and cult objects such as magic or commemorative figures, masks, posts, palace doors, representational objects, musical instruments, tobacco pipes, and drinking horns. The introduction presents important aspects of the cultural and artistic development of each object’s region of origin, also in the context of European colonization. All are illustrated with numerous field photographs. This is followed by an essay on beaded artworks from the Grasslands, a subject that has been little researched to date. As the Grasslands are embedded in a larger cultural area, objects in the collection from neighbouring ethnic groups are also presented, in many cases shedding light on centuries-old connections and artistic exchanges.

This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Helen McNicoll. An Impressionist Journey at Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Quebec City, Canada 20 June 2024 to 05 January 2025. Edited by Anne-Marie Bouchard, curator of Modern Art, the volume focuses on the idea of mobility in the life of the Canadian artist Helen McNicoll (1879-1915).In the early 1900s, when women from well-to-do backgrounds were often confined to family and domestic life, Canadian Impressionist Helen McNicoll stood out for her love of travel and the discovery of new spaces. The artist emphasised painting outdoors and researching the effects of light and atmosphere that her numerous trips sustained. Her favourite subjects were scenes of everyday life, although she succeeded in offering an interpretation distinct from the Impressionists in that she focused more extensively on women’s labour.The Helen McNicoll. An Impressionist Journey exhibition presents more than 60 works by the artist, 25 of them from the Pierre Lassonde collection. Through the prism of travel, the book thus examines the themes of female independence, risk-taking, friendship, and freedom for women in the stimulating context of the struggle by English suffragettes to win the right to vote.Text in English and French.

During the cherry blossom season of April 1924, 100 years ago, on his only trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, Alfred Baur, an extraordinary entrepreneur and founder of the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva, was charmed to discover the sparkling poetry of the “images of the floating world” (ukiyo-e), combined with the landscapes of the great masters of the print and the delightful motifs found throughout the objects in his superb collection of Japanese art.Echoing his taste and pioneering spirit, and as part of the celebrations marking the 160th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan, this book, thanks to contributions from leading specialists in the fields of handicrafts and textiles, takes an in-depth historical, technical and comparative look at the desire for lightness that underpins the aims, aesthetics and meaning of the work of Michiko Uehara, a virtuoso weaver.In her studio bathed in the subtropical sunshine of Okinawa, in the archipelago in the far south of Japan where she was born and which is renowned for its textiles, she succeeds in pushing the material to the very edge of nothingness, weaving and dyeing sublime fabrics in three-denier threads*, as fine and transparent as “a dragonfly’s wing” (akezuba in the local language).This bonding relationship – combining the physical and the spiritual – which links Uehara to silk fibres and more generally to nature itself, gives rise to “woven air”, as she puts it: an aerial, rhythmic journey, free of borders and attuned to living things.As this book suggests, this quest is not unrelated to some of the research carried out by Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard, whose solar aircraft, a giant, silent dragonfly whose carbon-fibre ribs combine extreme strength and lightness, intelligently weaves a harmonious path between humanity, earth and sky…* The Denier (Den) is a measure of continuous thread, i.e. its weight in grams per 9000 metres of thread; i.e. 1 Den = 1 gr./9000m of threadText in English and French.

Molluscs are extraordinary builders; indeed, their architectural skills are almost unparalleled in the animal world. Who among us has failed to marvel at the wonderful structure of the smallest shell picked up on the beach? Some enthusiasts collect them throughout their lives – attracted by their beauty if they are aesthetes, or sought out for scientific purposes, as in the case of Jacques Senders. In this book, Paul Starosta’s spectacular photographs take the reader on a journey through this astounding collection, first started 50 years ago. These shells, marvels of nature as they are, naturally suggest exotic or futuristic architecture, ancient or Art Nouveau vases, or even precious stones or volcanic rocks, and reaffirm the importance of nature as a source of inspiration for artists and architects. By celebrating the extraordinary variety and architectural refinement of the shells in Jacques and Rita Senders’s collection, the book reveals a world where nature far surpasses human imagination and invention.At the end of the volume, miniature photographs are accompanied by scientific information on shells, their life, characteristics and different families.

This exhibition and accompanying book show how contemporary artists are reinventing craft techniques, exploring identity and cultural history.Embroidery, a skill passed down through generations, is central to this exploration. Traditionally practiced by women, it's now embraced by both genders. The exhibition highlights the work of Madhvi and Manu Parekh, who draw inspiration from India's rich spiritual and artistic traditions. Their works, ranging from paintings to sculptures, reflect the interplay between the real and the imaginary.The Chanakya School of Craft works with these artists to reinterpret their work through embroidery. This fusion of art and craft challenges traditional boundaries and creates a dialogue between past and present.

Everythingflows is a book of photographs by Laura Veschi in which the image forms the narrative and emotional core of the work.Guided by the author’s black-and-white photographs, we explore the world of marble in Carrara, beginning in the mountains – the Apuan Alps – which, for Fosco Maraini – orientalist, writer, mountaineer, and anthropologist – evoke ‘the creation of the world’.In these places, in these mountains, if you say marble, you immediately think of water: marble was in fact formed from water millions of years ago, from deposits of shells and coral; it is water that smooths and shapes it, and water remains the key element in the working of this stone.Water, a symbol of perpetual movement, runs through Laura Veschi’s photographs as a subtle, underlying presence, accompanying the creative process and the transformation of matter. This reference to the element is an integral part of Veschi’s poetics. For the Carrara-based photographer, the ‘sound’ of water becomes the very voice of photography, an echo that follows the processes of creation and transformation of marble.Structured like a symphony in four movements, the book guides the reader along a path that moves from the mountain to the studio, from the raw block to the finished form, restoring the sacred, physical, and temporal dimension of marble. Along this journey, Laura introduces us to the sculptor Filippo Tincolini, following the continuous flow of his thought and gesture from the original idea to the completed sculpture.Laura, a deep connoisseur of the world of marble, captures the tension between what has settled over time and what is still being shaped, between the memory of the stone and the creative impulse that transforms it. Her images do not fix marble in a static idea, but reveal it in its flow, as though sculpture itself were part of an uninterrupted process in which the past is never entirely past and the future is already in the making.Art, like the river of Heraclitus, passes and at the same time remains; it changes form but does not lose its essence. And so, in marble, in its working, and in the photography that tells its story – everything flows.Text in English, French and Italian.

This project grew out of the artist's fervent desire to live in close contact with the sea. To this end, Pradelli chose to move to these islands off the Sicilian coast (Lipari, Vulcano, Salina, Filicudi, Alicudi, Panarea, Stromboli) during the winter, when the light is brighter and clearer. These are not the summer Eolians, but islands shrouded in an atmosphere of profound, silent calm, with only the hiss of the sea and the unsettling rumble of the volcanoes. The project was not to produce a photographic record of the islands, but to register a personal visual journey, in which Pradelli identifies with the places themselves, feeling their pulse and portraying them in their changing moods. Pradelli has included only two human figures in his portraits of the islands: Turi the fisherman and Angela, whose simple gestures manage to encapsulate the very essence of life itself. He has chosen to work in black-and-white so as to be able to stress the powerful geometry of the landscape and the faces and in order to highlight the contrast between the white of the sky and the fire and the black of the sea and the land.

Japanese designers' special ability to combine aesthetic tradition with contemporary visual culture and material innovation has created a distinctive and exceptionally successful design industry in Japan, which has produced such divergent icons of modern design as Sori Yanagi's Butterfly Stool, the Sony Walkman, the Honey-Pop Armchair by Tokujin Yoshioka, and the Toyota Prius. This book traces the development of Japanese design from the country's craft revival in the early twentieth century to the extraordinary objects of high technology that have been a specialty of Japanese designers since mid-century. Paola Antonelli's lively introduction provides an overview of Japan's design culture; an essay and timeline by Penny Sparke illuminate the masterpieces of modern Japanese design that are superbly reproduced in the volume's plate section.

Eclectic, eccentric and tirelessly innovative, art crafted from cut paper has experienced an exciting renaissance in recent years. Published to accompany a travelling exhibit organised by the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Slash: Paper Under the Knife examines the resurgence of traditional handicraft materials and techniques in contemporary art and design. Highlighting the work of forty-five international artists, among them Olafur Eliasson, Tom Friedman, William Kentridge, and Kara Walker, the book features not only cut but also burned, torn, laser-cut, shredded and sculpted paper art.In addition, the book includes cut-paper animation, as well as cut paper incorporated in photography and fashion. Works range from small-scale intricate cuttings to large-scale architectural inventions and sculptures. With an essay by well-known decorative arts expert David Revere McFadden, this singular book reveals that, with ingenuity and craftsmanship, one of our most familiar implements can be transformed into unforgettable works of art.

First published in 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus is perhaps the most famous work of literature to deal with man's obsession with the creation of life itself, thereby supplanting God and nature. In more recent times the theme has been taken further, particularly in the world of cinema and theatre, where special-effects artists have dreamed up automata, androids, and monstrous beings of all kinds. Their experiments are virtual simulations of the divine creation of man, and as such reflect the obsessions, feelings and emotions of their creators. Driven by the urge to recreate the 'spectacle of life', these artists make their characters appear life-like and 'emerge' from the film itself, so that they remain impressed on viewers' memory. The photographs in this book illustrate the many ways that special-effects artists have recreated the human form with inanimate materials.Includes contributions by Massimo Centini (holder of the Chair of Cultural Anthropology at the Università Popolare of Turin, a member of the Scientific Committee and Department of Anthropology of the European association of Traditional Medicines. He has written numerous texts, including Guida al sacro in Europa (Newton & Compton 2000). Jonny Costantino (journalist and film critic), Mara Granzotto (teacher of photography and exhibition curator), and Georges Vercheval (founder of the Photography Museum of Charleroi).Text in English and Italian.

Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) was one of the most innovative furniture and interior designers of the twentieth century, long renowned for the tubular-steel chairs she created with le Corbusier. Her career spanned nearly seventy-five years and included work in her native France as well as in Africa, South America, Asia, and Europe, and today her designs are highly collectable. Recently, several hundred photographic negatives were uncovered in her archives, revealing for the first time the scope of her work as a photographer. In the late 1920s, French interior and furniture designer Charlotte Perriand was at the cusp of her career, just beginning her work as an architect, designer, town planner, and political militant. Starting in 1927, she turned to photography, which was to play a pivotal role in her development as a designer through the pioneering years of the modern movement. Her photographic venture ended in Japan in 1941, when the hope of a better world was shattered by World War II. For Charlotte Perriand, photography was a machine for thinking, taking notes, and stirring emotions, but it was also an instrument of political engagement. Today, her photographs are a revelation, offering unseen glimpses into her creative process and intellectual development. Her photographs express the important themes and questions explored by modern artists of the day, and are part of the vast stream of avant-garde movements in which painters, architects, and photographers - and sometimes all three combined - worked together in a common spirit.

Over the centuries, craftsmen have applied their creativity and technical skills to exploit the generous resources of Nature to marvellous effect. In this case they have employed seeds, leaves, flowers and fibres from the plant world, along with feathers, plain or iridescent shells, teeth, and fur from the animal kingdom to fashion objects of astonishing beauty, enhanced with the addition of elements in iron, copper, silver, and gold. Such materials have always provided the basis for magnificent headdresses of all varieties, including hats, caps, crowns, and headbands. In time, as the conditions of trade and pilgrimage routes improved, rare materials and manufactured products spread all over the globe, as well as new knowledge, techniques, and methods of fabrication. Each class of individual sported a distinct type of headdress: initiates and adults, hunters and warriors, religious dignitaries and healers, rulers and notables; unmarried girls, married women, and young mothers. In each case the author explains their opulence and symbolism to the reader.

The Bori is a kind of African shamanism, an animist cult centred on possession by the spirits of the ancestors, which has spread throughout West Africa. Its followers, priests (also known as Bori) and assistants are clairvoyants or faith healers. They perform ecstatic ritual dances to conjure up the djinns-spirits-that they hope will protect society and its individual members from evil powers. Faith healers (Boka) employ traditional plants to heal the sick. Although living in societies which are for the most part Islamic, women play an important role in the Bori and sometimes occupy key positions. Caroline Alida's black-and-white portraits do not depict the often brightly coloured and seductive clothes/costumes of the Bori any more than they dwell on the objects used in ritual practices. The dim natural light, which barely leaks into the confined spaces, makes all the peripheral details disappear, drawing out only the essential elements and imbuing the photos with a contemplative atmosphere.