Figures of slippage and oscillation
Izabela Pluta

Figures of slippage and oscillation by Izabela Pluta was the winner of the 2019 Perimeter Small Book Prize.

Drawing on a series of darkroom contact prints titled Spatial misalignments – which were conceived by shining light through the pages of three long-out-of-print editions of The Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas – Sydney-based photographer and artist Izabela Pluta’s debut book bears witness to the turbulence, mutability and power structures that both prop up and undermine the static dogmas of the global map. In these richly and elusively detailed images, the world as we knew it blurs and collapses in on itself, flow and miasma gently erasing the borders and demarcations – the strategic fictions and mythologies – to which we’ve anchored our semantics of place.

Underscored by a collaborative text work by Melbourne poet Lisa Gorton and an experimental essay by Art Gallery of NSW Senior Curator of Contemporary Australian Art Isobel Parker Philip, Figures of slippage and oscillation reappraises our philosophical and conceptual grappling with geography and cartography. Here, the fog of arbitrariness bankrupts the law and lore of our oceans and lands; the echo of violence, migration and climatic shift belies our borders. In the process, Pluta whispers to the fragility of our geological, environmental and societal condition. As the oceans wash through our now quaint delineations, she archives our loss.
(source: https://www.perimeterbooks.com/products/special-edition-pre-order-izabela-pluta-figures-of-slippage-and-oscillation)

About the Artist
Izabela Pluta (b. 1979, Poland) migrated to Australia in 1987. She has an MFA from UNSW Art & Design, Sydney, and a PhD from The University of Wollongong, entitled Allegories of Diaspora: Gleaning the residues of spatial and temporal misalignments. She has exhibited widely throughout Australia, including at the Art Gallery of NSW, Artspace, the Australian Centre for Photography an UTS Gallery, Sydney; Queensland Centre for Photography, Brisbane; 24 HR Art, Darwin; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts; Canberra Contemporary Art Space; and the National Gallery of Victoria, West Space and Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne; among many others. In 2012, she was commissioned to create Unset Typologies, a public artwork for the City of Melbourne. In 2018, Pluta was shortlisted for the MAMA Foundation National Photographic Award. In 2019, Pluta was commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW to create a significant new work for The National 2019: new Australian art exhibition, and presented Reversal – a solo exhibition at The Glasshouse Regional Gallery in regional NSW. Pluta is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert and is a Senior Lecturer in photography at UNSW Art & Design, Sydney.
izabelapluta.net
(source https://perimetereditions.com/FIGURES-OF-SLIPPAGE-AND-OSCILLATION)

About the Publisher
Perimeter Editions is the award-winning publishing imprint of Melbourne-based bookstore Perimeter Books and distribution house Perimeter Distribution. Releasing its first publication in 2012, Perimeter Editions’ focus rests on publishing autonomous books in close collaboration with photographers, artists, curators and writers. Its publications exhibit a criticality and sensitivity to content and form.
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(source: https://perimetereditions.com/filter/Izabela-Pluta/About)