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Paradis
BEST DUTCH BOOK DESIGNS
Oriane Thomasson (BE)
SOLD OUT
Concept, photography and text:
Oriane Thomasson
Translation:
Louise Jablonowska
Design:
Rob van Hoesel
Lithography:
Sebastiaan Hanekroot (Colour&Books)
Production:
Jos Morree (Fine Books)
Print:
Wilco Art Books (NL)
Binding:
Patist (NL)
Supported by:
SABAM
Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles
A cabinet of curiosities – or Wunderkammer – exhibits a wide variety of objects and artefacts with a particular notion towards the rare, eclectic and esoteric. Through their selection of objects, they tell a particular story about the way humans see the natural and cultural world.
Inspired by this way of collecting, Oriane Thomasson (FR) created Paradis, where science and art, natural and artificial, come together to produce a new fiction. The collection is a mosaic of photographic work and archival materials. From images she made during her travels through the Far East, to botanical and mineralogical illustrations.
Paradis examines the different materialities of images and the way they influence our imagination. The work questions the concept of nature through its representations, and the myths from Western societies that stem from those. As a modern explorer, Thomasson brings together what she discovered and assembles the images into a new narrative through which we wander.
Woven through the images is a fictional text in which the reader is led to an unknown land. Paradis is an invitation to rediscover nature’s ability to make us imagine, dream and build new stories.
English or French edition available.
Oriane Thomasson is a French artist based in Brussels. Her first photobook, Paradis, was published by The Eriskay Connection in August 2022. Paradis was showcased at international fairs such as Unseen Amsterdam, the New York Art Book Fair, the Tokyo Art Book Fair, and Polycopies. The book was awarded among the Best Dutch Book Designs 2022 and was shortlisted for the Author Book Award at the Rencontres d’Arles, before being exhibited at the festival in 2022. The Paradis series was exhibited at the gallery Chez Olivia as part of the Photo Brussels Festival in 2024. Her work was also shown at Contretype in 2019 as part of Propositions d’artistes, and again in 2024 during the Pop Up Flash Sales. Paradis is now sold out. Through her analog and digital photographic work, Oriane Thomasson explores themes of paradise and nature, integrating archival material and drawings into her practice. The materiality of images and their transmission allows her to reflect on our visual imagination and the way it is constructed. Atlantis was the subject of a research residency at ISELP in Brussels from January to April 2025. Part of the series has also been presented at ISELP in the form of an installation during the group exhibition Réminiscences, from April to June 2025. Oriane Thomasson studied at ERG (École de Recherche Graphique) and in 2019, upon completing her studies, she was awarded the Roger de Conynck Prize, which honors “a talented young photographer.”
- Best Dutch Book Designs 2022
- Best Dutch Book Designs 2022 (student selection)
- Schönste Bücher aus aller Welt 2022 (shortlist)
- Arles Author Book Award 2023 (shortlist)
“Inside, the photographs are printed on various types of paper and some pages are slightly shorter than others. The resulting visual flow is unpredictable and exciting, and the absence of captions encourages us to use our imagination to understand the pictures. An essay by Thomasson titled “The Monkey and the Sarcophagus”, which appears over several pages throughout the book, is full of surprises, as it immerses us into a new fictional world.” (Olga Yatskevich)
“People and their idiosyncrasies are disappearing, dinosaurs are elements of the decor of the giant amusement park that existence has become – frightening because it masks its vileness through the totalitarianism of its artifacts – and we can no longer distinguish the simulacrum from reality in its spontaneous inventiveness.” (Fabien Ribery)