- Publisher's life
Our book was awarded
»IN LOVE FROM« named one of the 25 Most Beautiful German Books 2024, honoured by Stiftung Buchkunst with a celebratory Release Night at Bücherbogen in Berlin.
about the book
IN LOVE FROM
One Picture. One Text. One Love.
- by Maitreya Ravenstar
Stiftung Buchkunst recently announced the 25 winners of their competition, the Most Beautiful German Books of 2024. Among the five selected for the General Literature category was our book »IN LOVE FROM – A Picture. A Text. A Love.« edited by Helena Melikov with help from Lilli Geßner. On June 17th, Stiftung Buchkunst held their Release Night at Bücherbogen bookshop at Savignyplatz in Charlottenburg. All the winners were celebrated with rounds of applause by an audience overflowing out the door as Stiftung Buchkunst’s own Birte Kreft and Carolin Blöink presented the titles one by one. The competition names winners in a variety of genres, from textbooks to children’s books to art books, thus the community of fellow bookmakers supporting each other came from a variety of backgrounds, all connected by a love of Stiftung Buchkunst’s criteria: design, conception, and processing of books.
»IN LOVE FROM – A Picture. A Text. A Love.« is a collection of contemporary love letters written by 21 authors in reaction to old black-and-white photographs and is presented by the project Lost & Found. The book strings the past, present, and future through photography and literature, featuring a letter written by AI (GPT-4) to offer a new perspective on the rising role of artificial intelligence in writing. These letters reflect upon the complexity of human relationships and emotions by exploring the powerful connection between photography and the written word, with each photo given a new meaning through the author’s interpretation.
Editor and Publisher of the book Helena Melikov, © Gabriele Förster
At the bookstore Bücherbogen in Charlottenburg, © Gabriele Förster
People look through the winning books, © SHIFT BOOKS
“…A thoroughly romantic concept reanimates old photographs that have lain dormant anonymously in flea markets. Authors were invited to revive an atrophied cultural technique – the writing of love letters. They immerse their imagination in a given photo and let themselves be inspired. People are attached to things, but conversely, memories are attached to every artefact – especially photographs. The memories may be orphaned, but the photos are kissed awake. Each new letter in unpretentious typewriter font is loosely inserted with a picture. In this way, both come together as fresh image-text pairs.
The letters lie on top of each other as eight-page folded sheets. This almost looks like a book block. There is no conventional stitching in the binding, as the letters would otherwise remain closed. And the function of holding them together is ultimately performed by the combination of slipcase and sleeve. A book after all.”
Jury statement (extract)
IN LOVE FROM
One Picture. One Text. One Love.
26€
Authors: Anushka, Julia Meyer-Brehm, Swan Collective, Christian Dittloff, Rabea Edel, Carl Ensom, GPT-4, Sophia Hembeck, Ina Holov, Franziska König, Marie Krutmann, Charlotte Kunstmann, Lana Lux, Lisa Tracy Michalik, MINETTA, Marvin L.T. Müller, Noa Sophia Niss, Marit Persiel, Michael Schuster, Alexej Tikhonov, Erica Zingher
Lost & Found was launched by Helena Melikov in 2016. The project is dedicated to Vernacular Photography, photos found in flea markets devoid of any recognizable history, taken by amateurs who captured their anonymous everyday lives. Lost & Found aims to bring new meanings to these images by putting them in other contexts such as short stories, poems, or dialogues. The project invites the viewer to imagine the photograph as a carrier of importance and to question the way we perceive and interpret images. SHIFT BOOKS plans to publish more collections with Lost & Found in the future.
The Release Night ended with the chance to look through all the winners’ books. Bookmakers from different corners of the community exchanged congratulations and signed copies of their books before stepping outside of Bücherbogen to gather and mingle outside in the warm evening air. It was a wonderful night.
Unwrapped book view, © SHIFT BOOKS
Maitreya Ravenstar is an intern at SHIFT BOOKS, senior at Skidmore College studying Multimedia Journalism
Maitreya has worked as a News Assistant for Skidmore College’s Office of Marketing and Communications since 2022. Her publication “but as the clouds descended on us, I could see you” was selected for Printed Matter‘s Decolonization, Resistance, and Interconnected Solidarity table and her articles have been published by the School Renewal Journal, IES Abroad, and Scope Magazine.
Keep up with the latest in SHIFT BOOK’s community newsletter.
