The beauty and tenderness of withering and decay

In this gorgeous book, Brigitte Lustenberger explores the passing of time, memory and the fragility of life. She transforms flowers dried on glass used for photographic slides into delicate photographs. Celebrating the beauty of decay, Lustenberger leads us into a fascinating world of withered flowers. Her images reveal the incredible details of nature’s ingenious constructions. The artist manages to combine both the fleetingness of a drawing made with light and the preservation of a photograph. Four essays by renowned curators provide insight into the artist’s process-oriented working method, the interweaving of analogue and digital technology in her practice, and contextualize An Apparition of Memory within Western and Japanese photographic and art history.

BRIGITTE LUSTENBERGER (*1969, Zurich) studied Photo Theory and History at Zurich University and Fine Art Photography at Parsons The New School of Design in New York. Lustenberger explores the essence of the medium of photography and its close connection to themes such as decay, memory and death. She works with large and medium format cameras, scanners, iPhones, overhead and slide projectors. Her work has won numerous awards and has been exhibited internationally. She lives in Bern, Switzerland.