Monument
Trent Parke
Trent Parke (born 1971) is an Australian photographer. Born and brought up in Newcastle, New South Wales. Nowadays he lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He began his career as a press photo-journalist. In 2007 he became the first Australian member of the Magnum Photo Agency.
Parke uses Monument to reflect on his past work. He started going through his negatives from 2000 to 2003. It was the time when he really became experimental and started to push the boundaries of his photography. He began experimenting with light. He started to slow down shutter speeds, increasing exposure times, creating images that show the blurs of people drifting like ghosts through city streets.
Parke’s practice involves shooting many rolls of films to get the perfect shot where the light, time and movement all fall into place. It resulted in often over-exposed or under-exposed negatives. For Monument he revisited these images. Only due to hi-res scans it turned out there was enough information to use them.
But Monument isn’t a retrospective in the traditional sense of the word. While it incorporates some of his best known images and draws from various photobooks and bodies of work made over two decades, it doesn’t offer a step-wise review of discrete projects made by the Australian photographer. Nor is it organized in a chronological order or summary form. It’s a innovative remix of Parke’s images. Building an entirely new narrative out of the raw material of his own artistic output.
The book begins with moths. Just like Parke, moths are drawn to light. In the book they appear as glowing, star-like specks, vague shapes that gradually come into being as they trail across the night sky. Gradually they morph into the lights of the highway, city streets and the idea that we are all part of the same universe and that we all have a limited time on earth. Light attracts moths, but the light also spells their demise. In Parke’s vision man is also on the way to his inescapable end.
Then we move to the city, a dark metropolis delineated by light and shadow. People emerge from the shadows. Isolated figures seek out single pillars of light. Time slows down and the populace finds itself stretched and distorted across the pictures. Fragmentation continues as bodies, faces and limbs disintegrate into the grain. And then finally we’re back where we started, in a starscape, a constellation made up of fragments of humanity. Monument shows us the disintegration of the universe. And the human race as a blip in the life of the universe spanning the dawn of time.
The desing of the book is beautiful. It has a leather cover and a loose steel placque. Which once removed leaves the book without language. The placque provides a geographic view of our planet. The entirely black cover of Monument is covered with various symbols embossed in the dark leather. Two human figures (one male and one female) offer greetings on the back, while planetary circles track along the spine.
According to the publisher, the first printing of Monument sold out within 7 hours. And the second printing sold out during presale. A new, third, printing will be released in March 2024.
Monument
Photographer: Trent Parke
Publisher: Stanley / Barker
Published in 2023
Flexibound, embossed leather cover, blind stamped end sheets, sprayed edges, metal plaque, 31,4 x 25,1 cm, 296 pages
Chosen by people immersed in the photobook world as one of their favorite photobooks of 2023