Vedove/Widows by Takashi Homma

I have several books by Japanese photographer Takashi Homma, this is the most recent.

Published by Fantom Editions of Italy this is a limited edition on 350, now sold out.

Vedove/Widows uses a range of unconventional binding techniques to create a more interesting object.

Two volumes, separately bound, divided by thick card. This is all held together by a heavy duty elastic band that fits neatly in cut out notches to the top and bottom.

From the Fantom editions website: 

Fantombooks has just released its first volume, Vedove/Widows by Takashi Homma, curated by Francesco Zanot and designed by Fabrizio Radaelli. 

The book, extremely accurate in concept and printing, is published in an edition of 350 copies (2 volumes: pages 16 + 55, cm. 23 x 17) and will be available online at fantomeditions.com and in few selected bookshops.

The project is the result of the cooperation between Andrea Botto and Francesco Zanot, respectively director and curator of the annual Rapallo Fotografia festival, who entrusted the Japanese photographer to work around the theme of memory and personal archives in Rapallo and in the Italian region of Liguria.

During his stay in the area, fascinated by the pictures stored in the archives of Genoa and Rapallo, Homma explored the need to preserve personal and intimate memories, especially after a loss.

Thus he shot eleven portraits of widowed women - witnesses for their dead partners’ memories - and captured a glimpse of the places where the widows live. This work being the subject of the exhibition at Castello di Rapallo.

He also re-photographed the snapshots of the widows’ family albums, exclusively published in the book which represents therefore an integral part of the project and the exhibition. 

Born in 1962 in Tokyo, where he lives and works, Takashi Homma studied photography at Nihon University College of Art. In 1984 he started to work in advertising and in 1991 he moved to London. In 1999 he won the Kimura Ihei Commemorative Photography Award for his project Tokyo Suburbia, now an extremely rare cult book.

Fantombooks is the book series arising from Fantom magazine, a new international photographic quarterly edited between Milan and New York by Selva Barni and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, and published by Boiler Corporation, Milano. The series will release only a few carefully selected titles, each designed by a different art director, produced in its own specific format and distributed through selected bookstores worldwide.

Fantom have just release a new book by Guido Guidi, I have ordered this today.