Description
Lost Europe, the most extensive book published so far by 400 ASA, contains almost 150 black-and-white documentary photographs from Ukraine by three authors from the early 1990s to the present. Photographs by Karel Cudlín, Jan Dobrovský, and Martin Wágner are accompanied by the text of journalist Petra Procházková. Graphic design of the book is work of Zuzana Lednická of Studio Najbrt.
Photographers capture a country with a dramatic history as a place reminiscent of the poetics of a life that is disappearing forever. As a reminder of the simple old days before globalization. As a document of day to day life, which the authors themselves comment on: “The photographs in this book captured a vanishing world. In fact, its end, which is neither tragic nor does it resemble a happy ending. It is a walk into the past, a capture of the pure way of life we miss, but we would no longer be able or willing to live. ”
“I consider the book Lost Europe to be one of the best documentary photography publications ever published in the Czech republic. It perfectly combines the tradition of humanistic photography with a modern subjective angle. In visually strong shots, inventively working with confrontations of various motifs, with pictorial composition and with light, the book shows various aspects of contemporary life in Ukraine in many ways.” says photographer, photography historian, and pedagogue Vladimir Birgus.
The book Lost Europe is published in the English language with inserted Czech text.
From Petra Procházková’s accompanying text:
“You won’t understand Ukraine until you try horilka. Until you take a shot of it straight from the bottle and follow it up with a bite of lard and top off this culinary experience with an onion. Only then, when an inhabitant of the sated and conceited navel of the world, which is called Europe, has his or her lips attached to a thick sided glass of the local firewater, will he or she penetrate even the darkest corners of Ukrainian existence. Only then will you view this country through benevolent eyes, a place where the drabness and desolation are transformed into a poetic backdrop for your journey back to the good old days. To a time when everything was more genuine. More down to earth and forthright. But also crueler, more merciless.”