The island : a case study of a collector's mind

Inbunden bok. Berlin : Revolver Publishing. 2011.

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Förlagets dekorerade gråmelerade pappband. Trådbundet. Stort liggande format. 40+24 sid. + 80 planschsidor med färgfotografier. 25 x 30 cm. 1111 gram. Biblioteksutrustat, med stämplar och signummärkning på titelsidan. Omfattande fotomaterial med texter på svenska, engelska och italienska av Gabriella Håkansson och Magnus Bärtås.

The Island - A Case Study of a Collector's Mind is a book in connection to a larger project by Korean artist Hyun-Jin Kwak who has involved herself in a specific site and its meaning, history, and especially its symbolic and political significance. In the summer of 2008, right in the heart of Reggio Emilia, some hundred meters from the main square, she found a blind spot in the city. It was a badly run down house with a large iron fence and a padlocked gate, with a sign warning people to stay away. From the outside, the house seemed abandoned. She was able to enter the building and discovered that the house, which appeared to be a Venetian palace, complete with wall and ceiling murals, had to a significant degree been turned into a ruin filled with garbage, but the palace was not abandoned. After a period of research and staging of the photographs in this environment, between 2008 and 2010, Hyun-Jin Kwak together with authors Mangus Bärtås and Gabriella Håkansson realized this publication.

This book is an investigation of the history of the house, Casa Barbieri, the family biography and the perception of the house as a deviation from the norm. In The Island, the run down palace is used to portray how a place can challenge a town's structure, architecturally and socially. Hyun-Jin Kwak is interested in the possible stories the house holds within itself, and how its ruin-like nature constitute an almost archaeological site, where different sediments of history are made clearer. The aspect of collecting, as a state of constant expansion, to the point where erosion occurs and the collection deteriorates and even decomposes is highlighted. All of these aspects - the house's location within the city, its decay, the collapse of collecting, becoming a slave to one's possessions - pose a challenge to a social and political order.

Kwaks larger project consists of art works with staged photography, documentary material, and video. The book is produced with the images and accompanying texts. Here, Kwak collaborates with the artist and author Magnus Bärtås and Gabriella Håkansson, whose interest lies in biography and the psychology of collecting. The two authors for this book were commissioned to write in their own style and from their own artistic standpoint. One who writes an essay based on observations and research on location and the other writing fiction based on the study of the visual material provided and her own imagination.