2017 The Diver
BookSize: 13 x 18 cmPages: 80 Design: Tine GunsPublishers: 10191, self-publishedBinding: perfect boundPrinter: CassochromePrinting: duotone HUV offsetEdition: 50 (including 10 special editions)Dummy edition: 5 (in 2015)Sold outShortlisted for 2015 MACK First Book AwardExpoDe zee/Salut d’honneur Jan Hoet, Oostende (BE), 10.2014–4.2015
For the editing of ‘The Diver’ I took a closer look at the work of two great masters: Hokusai and Osamu Tezuka. More specifically their use of the frame or the panel was a great inspiration. The transitions between the frames and especially the ‘aspect-to-aspect panel transitions’ that define Osamu Tezuka’s manga were very important in the construction of ‘The Diver’. I focussed on the way our mind creates a story out of two or more fragments of an image. I wondered what this would give if I’d translate this to photography. The frames in ‘The Diver’ are to be read as the frames of the window between the inside of a hotel room and the seaside outdoors. There is a man in the hotel room. There is a book on the night table. This book is ‘The Diver’. I gave the book the size of a regular manga or even a little bible. The story can be read from left to right or from right to left.