Donna Bassin – Portraits of the Precarious Earth

Review by Douglas Stockdale •

The first hint at what will be found within the covers of this delightful artist book is the delicate sewn lines around the circumference of the illustration of our planet gracing the front cover. I should also add at this point that Bassin attended my book development workshop a couple of years ago and I had an opportunity to see this body of work that was still being developed and I am very excited to see in its final form.

Thus, I was not greatly surprised that in working with the design team of THE DOCKs, that there are some interesting interactive layout subtleties incorporated in the book’s design, such as the half pages that open to reveal interrelated non-lineal images, a double page center gate-fold and the Washi taped in postcard that provides an option to interactively share her theme with others, to “start a conversation.”

Bassin landscape images are altered, burned, deconstructed, torn, cut and sewn, collaged, inverted, and juxtaposed with other related images, which are not always easily readable as to her subject matter or even her intent. The reader can be easily unmoored by the resulting artwork; to question what am I actually looking at? What am I to understand? Why is this important? Opened ended questions that hopefully will lead to awareness and discovery.

Stark landscape photographs have been collaged with photographs of colorful and enchanting vistas, perhaps symbolic of “what is” versus “what could be.” Some of the color images are sewn in place, perhaps representing how nature might mend itself, while others are held in place with old-fashion album corners, that I would understand to harken back to an earlier time.

She has constructed a series of trees, views of individual tree parts, that are collaged together with Washi tape. These juxtaposed images are also the same subject of her earlier artist book, Ancient Trees as well as the interior gatefold spread for her related zine, On the Precarious Earth – Landscapes of Loss and Resilience. I read these as nature deconstructed into segments and then reassembled, symbolic of nature’s healing or alternatively representing the fragility and interconnectedness of nature.

Related Zine

On the Precarious Earth – Landscapes of Loss and Resilience

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Collectively, as the reader encounters her sequence of images, an undercurrent of uneasiness begins to evolve and grow. The external source for these disrupted landscapes, mankind, is implied, while sometimes overt due to the physical changes to the print that reveals the workings of a hand.

Bassin states in her Introduction…I construct landscapes that honor what remains and mourn what is lost…I weave together memory and imagination – a visual reckoning of loss and survival…I hope that this project stands in solidarity with all who recognize the wonder of our natural world and our shared responsibility to protect it and all of its inhabitants.

As a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma, Bassin realizes that we should not conceal the collective damage, but to confront and reveal the trauma and loss so that healing might begin. Bassin provides the reader with an interesting narrative about what might be occurring with the global environment, while providing sufficient poetic food for thought to start more than one conversation.

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Douglas Stockdale is the Senior Editor and Founder of PhotoBook Journal

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Portraits of the Precarious Earth, Donna Bassin

Photographer/Artist): Donna Bassin, born in Brooklyn, NY and resides in New Jersey

Forward: Daniele Ogden, Introduction, Donna Bassin

Text: English

Stiff covers, with embroidery, perfect binding, center gate-fold, printed in Naples, Italy, limited and signed edition of 100.

Photobook Designer: Giulia Ciasca, THE DOCKS

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Articles and photographs published in the PhotoBook Journal may not be reproduced without the permission of the PhotoBook Journal staff and the photographer(s). All images, texts, and designs are copyright of the authors and publishers.

Note: the warm tone paper that this book is printed on is also a challenge to color correct.