Pure zen photography: aware, meditative, here, now. This book is a portal, an escape hatch to some time and space elsewhere, right here.
Elegantly designed, the book unfolds not once, but twice, revealing the exceptional images and texts inside.
bird, plane, butterfly sees Antoinette Nausikaä explore and encounter the urban landscape with her camera and her sensitive perception of space. The project is a complimentary sequel to her previous work, Breathing Mountains (2018), which looked at the relationship between humans and nature in remote, sacred mountain regions.
The metropolis is often viewed as a symbol of acceleration, transcience, and alienation - a place where we are constantly bombarded by a stream of impressions, information, and images. Yet, after observing that human presence is always evident even in the remotest corners of nature, she became convinced of the reverse: even in the city, the most human and ever-changing environment, it is possible to discover harmony, timelessness, and a deep connection to nature. All you have to do is be open, curious, and take the time to look. Wonder appears.
In bird, plane, butterfly, Nausikaä invites the viewer to slow down, embracing the power of contemplation and observation to experience the natural interconnectedness and wonder within our everyday surroundings.
Visual artist Antoinette Nausikaä (b. 1973, Vlissingen, NL) lives and works in Amsterdam. She earned her BA in Fine Arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and in 2010, she completed a residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Growing up in a family of aerial photographers, Nausikaä was exposed early on to the practice of zooming in and out on the world around her, a perspective that shaped her observational and investigative approach to art. Driven by a personal quest for harmony and stillness in a turbulent, rapidly changing world, her projects explore the interconnectedness of culture and nature within the everyday environment.