Publications
From 1 to 20
2019
Self-published
24 pages
Edition of 5
Design and binding by Manon Donckier
Brussels, Blegium
From 1 to 20 continues Miguel Rózpide’s exploration of his family archive by focusing on the system his grandfather used to organise it. Each slide was marked with a number. Slides that shared the same number were not intended to be placed together, yet they now form unexpected pairs.
Rózpide brings these numbered slides into sequence and presents them side by side. The pairings open fragile links between images that were once far apart in time or subject. A landscape meets an airport. A domestic scene sits next to a fragment of travel. The logic of the archive becomes visible, but so does its unpredictability.
The book moves from number one to number twenty. The structure is simple, almost methodical, yet the images create their own quiet stories. The archive becomes a place where order and chance overlap, and where meaning occurs in the space between two unrelated photographs that happen to share the same handwritten mark.
Through this approach, Rózpide highlights the small gestures that shape an archive. A number written in pencil becomes an invitation to look again and to read the collection in a new way. The book offers a calm and deliberate rhythm, allowing each pair to speak for itself while revealing how a single organising system can hold countless possible connections.
Rózpide brings these numbered slides into sequence and presents them side by side. The pairings open fragile links between images that were once far apart in time or subject. A landscape meets an airport. A domestic scene sits next to a fragment of travel. The logic of the archive becomes visible, but so does its unpredictability.
The book moves from number one to number twenty. The structure is simple, almost methodical, yet the images create their own quiet stories. The archive becomes a place where order and chance overlap, and where meaning occurs in the space between two unrelated photographs that happen to share the same handwritten mark.
Through this approach, Rózpide highlights the small gestures that shape an archive. A number written in pencil becomes an invitation to look again and to read the collection in a new way. The book offers a calm and deliberate rhythm, allowing each pair to speak for itself while revealing how a single organising system can hold countless possible connections.
Panacea
2018
Self-published
54 pages
Edition of 3
Design and binding by Francisco Santamouris
Brussels, Blegium
Human connection brings complex values to our lives: relationships give us a sense of belonging in the group, a sense of identity in contrast to others in that group, an almost therapeutic-support system, and reason not to feel lonely. We learn from others’ experiences and insights, and we learn together by pursuing new experiences alongside those we befriend.
In existential circles it’s often said that no two people have ever sat in the same room. This is because our own unique life histories and genetic makeups color the way we perceive the world around us, so that the same objective data point is interpreted differently by me than it is by you. This is existential isolation in a nutshell, the fact that an insurmountable invisible barrier exists between each and every one of us, that no matter how close our physical proximity may be, a psychic distance remains in that you don’t have access to my subjective life experience, to my inner world, except insofar as I explain it to you, and I don’t have access to your subjective life experience, to your inner world except insofar as you explain it to me. And again my explanation will be interpreted by you based upon your own unique life history and genetic makeup and your explanation will be interpreted by me based upon my own unique life history and genetic makeup.
These insights can lead to an oppressive sense of loneliness but they don’t have to, and actually we want to make the case here that it’s our very existential isolation that acts as the impetus for us to reach out to people and the world, to move beyond our smallness in order to connect with and influence the entities around us in a meaningful way. If we were all exactly the same, all experienced the world in the same way, all had the exact same life histories and genetic makeups, there would be little reason to reach beyond ourselves.
The result would be a sort of comfortable complacency, a womblike state without anything pushing us or pulling us to move beyond ourselves. Panacea is trying to reach out to the people I know, my friends, and what surrounds them. I try to enter their own worlds that somehow we share but are very difficult to visualise, process and understand. This series recognises and honours continued individuality while building community, it allows differentness and sameness to exist side by side. This sort of connection allows both entities to be first accepted but also modified in small and big ways. Through this process of modification, people get to know each other in profoundly intimate ways, they fuse through shared experiences and through their commitment to seeing things from the other’s vantage point rather than forcing their own vantage points upon the other, and the result is that perhaps two people can sit in the same room after all.
In existential circles it’s often said that no two people have ever sat in the same room. This is because our own unique life histories and genetic makeups color the way we perceive the world around us, so that the same objective data point is interpreted differently by me than it is by you. This is existential isolation in a nutshell, the fact that an insurmountable invisible barrier exists between each and every one of us, that no matter how close our physical proximity may be, a psychic distance remains in that you don’t have access to my subjective life experience, to my inner world, except insofar as I explain it to you, and I don’t have access to your subjective life experience, to your inner world except insofar as you explain it to me. And again my explanation will be interpreted by you based upon your own unique life history and genetic makeup and your explanation will be interpreted by me based upon my own unique life history and genetic makeup.
These insights can lead to an oppressive sense of loneliness but they don’t have to, and actually we want to make the case here that it’s our very existential isolation that acts as the impetus for us to reach out to people and the world, to move beyond our smallness in order to connect with and influence the entities around us in a meaningful way. If we were all exactly the same, all experienced the world in the same way, all had the exact same life histories and genetic makeups, there would be little reason to reach beyond ourselves.
The result would be a sort of comfortable complacency, a womblike state without anything pushing us or pulling us to move beyond ourselves. Panacea is trying to reach out to the people I know, my friends, and what surrounds them. I try to enter their own worlds that somehow we share but are very difficult to visualise, process and understand. This series recognises and honours continued individuality while building community, it allows differentness and sameness to exist side by side. This sort of connection allows both entities to be first accepted but also modified in small and big ways. Through this process of modification, people get to know each other in profoundly intimate ways, they fuse through shared experiences and through their commitment to seeing things from the other’s vantage point rather than forcing their own vantage points upon the other, and the result is that perhaps two people can sit in the same room after all.
Vol. 1
2017
Self-published
Edition of 10
Volume 1 is the first book Miguel Rózpide created. It grew from a need to look at death through modest and familiar scenes. The images come from everyday life, yet they hold a quiet tension. They suggest the fragile space where life and death sit close to each other.
At the centre of the book is a single sentence. The things that help me stay alive are the ones that kill me faster. It is not an explanation, only a simple truth placed among the images. It stays open and allows the viewer to find their own reading.
This book marks the beginning of a way of working. It shows an interest in collecting fragments and arranging them so that meaning appears slowly, through small gestures and calm observation.
At the centre of the book is a single sentence. The things that help me stay alive are the ones that kill me faster. It is not an explanation, only a simple truth placed among the images. It stays open and allows the viewer to find their own reading.
This book marks the beginning of a way of working. It shows an interest in collecting fragments and arranging them so that meaning appears slowly, through small gestures and calm observation.