This photobook (dummy) was nominated for the Mack First Book Award and was featured in online magazine Photomonitor: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/twilight-island/.
Selected by The Photobookshow for exhibition for NIDA International Symposium 2019 in Lithuania
Link to view dummybook : https://issuu.com/lhdowek/docs/twilight_island
Twilight Island
A silent equation unbinds deep rings of fire,
Palpable in damp ravines
And oceans gathering around the island's edge.
Out of the parabola of the skies,
Summer galloped in with its sad stillness
Full of slow time and blinding rays.
As time slips into stones,
Shallow moons fall into tepid lakes
And girls hover in their reflections
Living scene by scene.
I once lapsed into numbness,
Perhaps, I am here or lost dreaming of,
A colony of peaks soaring into orbs of distance,
Rhythmic forest that swell into lunatic terrors
And, diagonal rains which seep in
Shadows of feathers, shadows of needles,
Full of breath and the holler of myths.
© Leslie Hakim-Dowek - 2018
Statement:
Twilight island is a poetic contemplation of a time spent on a volcanic island. This book resonates with a subtext of several themes and thresholds. A succession of vistas from volcanic craters to desert plateaux is juxtaposed with landmarks of memory and recreational spaces where spectacles are set to unfold in a cycle of endless tourism. Sometimes the themes are polarised such as the vast wilderness we live in and the coming of age of two girls, my twin daughters; an earthly stage where generational rites and rituals have come into being but to which, we remain largely oblivious.
In a culture terminally ill with amnesia, in which temporal boundaries have weakened, an axis is drawn between the earthly transformations over millennia which are laid bare on this island and our compulsive stream of capture. This book is an attempt to provide a brief anchoring of an ever-transitory present within the inherent silence and stillness of a photograph.