Background information as a book review (by Jörg Colberg)
"Somewhere in California there is a town called Tranquility (you can find out more on the Wikipedia page), one of those many godforsaken places on the North American continent. This is where Heikki KASKI took photographs, resulting in the photo book 'Tranquility' ('the book contains an endless edition of nothing', © Heikki KASKI).
At the beginning of the photo book 'Tranquility', two pictures next to each other, both showing a tree covered with a tarpaulin. Their framing is slightly different, but the time of day is also decisive. One was taken at night, the tree illuminated by a flash, the other during the day. It is the same picture and yet it is not. It gives us the same information, and yet it is not. These pictures do not literally describe the tree in any way. It's not even about the photograph depicting the scene at different times of the day (that would just be another way of being very literal). Rather, it's about clear description and, more importantly, how little comes of it if we stick to it too closely. In the middle of the book there is a sequence of pictures framed by bright orange pages. Each of these pictures shows the sky with a flock of birds. This is one of the most wonderful parts of a photo book I've seen in a while. It completely stops you in your tracks, it interrupts any experience you are having with the book until then, it puts you in a different state of mind and it puts you back into the main story. It's almost shocking to see how well it works. Here we are, thinking about how photo books work, how you edit and carefully sequence them, and Heikki KASKI throws a wrench into those wheels, breaking up the flow of the book and swapping one type of art object for another just to make it work. There are more games like this played out in the book, and they all work. They all work effortlessly, and it's less about playing the game and showing how smart the book is, and more about alluding to a state of mind. Rest is ultimately a state of mind more than anything else, a visual meditation that uses a particular place as a conduit for a larger story that can't be revealed in the end. Photographically, much is obscured. Where something is not obscured, it is shown in different ways (like the tree) to remind us how little the descriptive power of photography actually shows.
'Tranquility' is a book of photographs that I have looked at again and again, almost compulsively, without ever getting tired of it." (freely translated text, © Jörg M. Colberg, source: https://cphmag.com/tranquility/)
About the Finnish photographer Heikki KASKI
Photo books by and with works by Heikki KASKI
- Book design
- Hans GREMMEN
- Format
- Pb. (no dust jacket, as issued), 19 x 26 pp., 118 pp., 62 ills. + fold out, text language: English