Born of the Purest Parents
Tamsin Green
Faced with fragments of rocks and minerals in daily life, I started to question if I would be able to find them again within their natural landscape. Salt comes from the sea; dead, vanishing and living ones. As bodies of water appear and disappear they deposit salt. With the slow passing of time brine pools, salt domes and veined caverns emerge on the surface of the earth. Fundamental to human life, for millennia we have sought out these salt landscapes. Reliant on the natural world to provide for us, we built settlements in places where salt could be harvested.
I began mapping this unfamiliar geological terrain, the result of both natural processes and human endeavours. Born of the Purest Parents combines field images with photographs of found specimens and google satellite images to create an alternative guide to salt. Elevating an essential mineral that has shaped the history of human civilisation.
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35 limited edition handmade books
- Hardback with laser cut cover
- 128 pages with 5 foldouts
- 155 x 225 mm
- 51 black and white photographs
- Digitally printed on papers that are FSC certified*
- 4 limited edition salt prints
- Printed in London, UK
- Published in March 2018
The book concept was developed with Yumi Goto at Reminders Photography Stronghold, Japan.
*Full details at the bottom of this page
Collections
San Telmo Museum – The Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche Collection (ES)
Reminders Photography Stronghold (JP)
The Photobook Museum (DE)
The Tate - Artist Book Library (UK)
Victoria & Albert Museum - National Art Library (UK)
Exhibitions
FORMAT19, Derby
Aarhaus Photobook Week 18
Kassel FotoBookFestival 18
PhotoIreland 18
Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2018
PhotoBangkok: Photobook as Object/ Photobook Who Cares
IED – Istituto Europeo di Design Madrid
Organ Vida – International Photography Festival
Internationale Photoszene Köln
Brighton Photo Fringe 18
Photofusion SALON/17
Other Notes
Reminders Photography Stronghold: Why we make Handmade Books - 2021 (Online Talk)
MiniClick Talk: Minerals, with Alexandra Lethbridge - 2018 (Brighton, UK)
Offspring Photo Meet: Lunch time chat - 2018 (London, UK)
Selected for Kassel Dummy Award '18
Nominated for MACK First Book Award
SALON/17 Photomonitor Book Award
Book Features: Ain't Bad, Another Place, boom saloon, New Landscape Photography
Book Review by Gemma Padley: Photomonitor
Interview with Steve Bisson: Urbanautica
Drawn to Scale - Eugenie Shinkle: Published in Scale & Substance
Reviews
"Somewhere between topographic survey, field guide and a photobook that has a fictional or poetic bent, this is a really clever and meticulously produced book. "
Gemma Padley, freelance journalist and editor
"Born of the Purest Parents began with a study of the typologies of salt – a substance that is common to both human physiology and to the earth’s structure – and evolved into a series of excursions planned on the basis of an inexact study of satellite imagery. The work incorporates multiple timescales – from the long reach of geological time to the relatively brief interval of human history – and contrasting visual languages. Opening with an inventory of tools used by an imaginary geologist, it moves through a series of chapters which call on the precise language of the science textbook and the expeditionary record. Green’s own photographs of salt formations are subjected to circular crops and presented in neat rows – graphic strategies that suggest microscopy."
Eugenie Shinkle, from the essay Drawn to Scale
The edition has been made with the following principles in mind: Minimise waste and the use of harmful materials, make locally, prioritise recycling.
Paper
GF Smith: Colourplan - made in Great Britain, FSC certified.
Munken: Lynx Smooth - FSC certified
Munken: Polar Smooth - FSC certified
Shepherds: Greyboard - 100% recycled material
Printing
The digital print production means reducing waste by decreasing printing plates and the intensive cleaning cycles associated with analog printing. The inks can be de-inked from the paper, enabling the prints to be recycled.
A local printer 3.5 miles from the studio space where my books are made and stored.
Packaging
The packaging material is composed of paper off-cuts from the book making process, and recycled materials from other studio deliveries (paper, bubble-wrap)
The boxes are unbleached and uncoated recyclable cardboard.