Kummer & Herrman // ART DIRECTION & DESIGN / Empty Bottles
Thread-bound photo book for WassinkLundgren. Winner of the Contemporary Photography Book Award at the 2007 Rencontres d’Arles photography festival.
Martin Parr about ‘Empty Bottles’: “WassinkLundgren exploded onto the photography scene in the summer of 2007 when their recently published book ‘Empty Bottles’ won the best book of the year award, at the Arles Festival. The book was a conceptual project, where by the artists planted plastic bottles on the streets of Beijing and photographed people collecting these for recycling. Not only did this show a recent social trend in contemporary China, but the fact that they set up the photo opportunities made this project so poignant. The book also had a most stunning design, and it was a pleasure to see this exciting new book, trump some of the established names in photography, by pulling off this prize.”
Thomas Weski about ‘Empty Bottles’: “I find this publication interesting because it appears to have only found a temporary form‚ a cleverly constructed artistic hybrid between imperfect book (binding!) and ephemeral magazine. Furthermore, the authors have dealt with a number of complex contemporary themes (China, poverty, large cities, resources, environment, globalisation), using the example of the profane treatment of empty plastic bottles.”
