Book Description
What happens when an image is removed from its original context? Does it retain the same meaning, or does it become something entirely new? What if an illustration from a scientific atlas, a work of art, an astronomical photograph, and a page from a historical archive were placed side by side? Would they invite us to see the world differently? Swiss artist Batia Suter explores precisely these questions in *Parallel Encyclopedia 1*, a remarkable visual experiment that investigates the relationship between images, memory, and knowledge. Rejecting the traditional encyclopedia's reliance on text to organize information, Suter constructs an entirely new form of encyclopedia by reassembling thousands of images sourced from books across a wide range of disciplines, allowing the images themselves to engage in an open-ended visual dialogue beyond language.
Years in the making, *Parallel Encyclopedia 1* gathers images drawn from publications on art, science, natural history, medicine, philosophy, anthropology, architecture, archaeology, and culture. Originally belonging to entirely different periods, places, and systems of knowledge, these illustrations and photographs are carefully reorganized, liberated from their captions, explanatory texts, and conventional classifications. As readers turn the pages, words no longer provide a fixed framework for interpretation. Instead, they are invited to rely on intuition, memory, and association, discovering unexpected relationships that emerge between seemingly unrelated images.
The true fascination of this book lies in its refusal to offer definitive answers. Batia Suter is not simply collecting beautiful pictures; she is creating new meanings through the act of sequencing and juxtaposition. A microscopic photograph may echo the form of a classical sculpture, a botanical illustration may resonate with an astronomical image, while geological formations may unexpectedly converse with the human body, architecture, or animal anatomy. Every page feels like entering an unlabeled visual archive, where the act of looking itself becomes an ongoing process of discovery.
*Parallel Encyclopedia 1* is far more than an artist's book. It is an important exploration of how images are read, remembered, and continually reinterpreted. An essential volume for collectors of photobooks, artists' books, visual culture, image archives, and experimental publishing, it also offers designers, artists, and anyone interested in image editing and visual sequencing an alternative model of reading—one that does not tell us how the world should be categorized, but instead invites us to learn how to see it anew.
Details
Author: Batia Suter
Publisher: Roma Publications
Publication Year: 2021
Dimensions: 29 × 22 cm
Binding: Hardcover
