Sunday night, memory fragments from animal planet. A gazelle being ripped apart in slow motion by a pack of hyenas. Soothing to watch as the weekend comes to an end, and existential anxiety is at its peak. The comforting assurance of knowing that nature will always take its course. Of having no choice – but to accept, and let go.
Terje Abusdal’s new book, Hope Blinds Reason, is a visual narrative from a series of journeys made in India along the river Ganga, from its source in the Himalayas to its delta in the Bay of Bengal. It is a story about an attempt to come to terms with one of the most elementary of human experiences, love and loss.
35 color images • Text by Aveek Sen • Editing: Gösta Flemming and Terje Abusdal • Design: Gösta Flemming • Soft cover with red transparent plastic dust jacket • 230 x 305 mm • 72 pages • English • 2019
Awarded Gold in the category Artists’ Books in the competition Årets vakreste Bøker (This Year's Most Beautiful Books) in Norway 2020.
Winner of Årets vakreste Bok (This Year's Most Beautiful Book) in Norway 2020. Jury motivation: “A project that really stands out in the crowd with its uncompromising search for expressive power. Sharply executed with a perfect distillate of an obvious solid material. Insanely precise in every detail. Each spread hits you like a fist in the stomach, but steers precisely around the clichés. This is a book that will not let go. Surgically curated posters that talk to each other; Bæm! Night. Blitz. Red. Black. Blue. Blood. Water. Nothing feels superfluous here. Few but very strong photographs, collected in what becomes a very charged book about one of the most elementary of human experiences; love and loss.”
