Robert Knoth and Antoinette de Jong
Hatje Cantz
Co Published by Ydoc
English
Hardcover
492 pages
175 x 245 mm
2012
ISBN 9783775733373
The Silk Road has linked East Asia to the West from time immemorial. Once a renowned trade route, it transferred religions and cultures. Long stretches of the artery are now dead or have sunk into miserable conditions. Robert Knoth (*1963) and Antoinette de Jong (*1964) documented the route for two decades, covering the rise of the Taliban, the American intervention after September 11, 2001, and the recent surge in opium production. The photographs reveal a darker side of globalization, as reflected in the faces of smugglers, prisoners, prostitutes, border guards, and police. With stunning landscapes of the former Silk Road as well as what have now become historic pictures of the Afghan civil war, this publication is a richly illustrated journey—supplemented by facts, stories, and quotations. Beginning in Afghanistan, it moves across Central Asia, Russia, and the Balkans to East Africa, Dubai, and into western Europe, where the poppy trail brings us to the streets of London.
About the Artists
Digital technologies have caused a seismic change to our position as documentary makers and have given us endless possibilities in narrative formats. We started experimenting with more layered forms of storytelling fusing the hyperrealism of documentary with the more abstract and conceptual qualities within the visual arts. This approach gives us the space to work in a more abstract way, connecting different narrative forms and disciplines. It is precisely at this position that we feel comfortable and are able to tap into deeper layers, more reflective, looking at larger movements and developments in today’s world. The accessibility of large quantities of image, sound and other sources play an important role in our work. The non-linearity, the simultaneous, is key to several of our projects.
knothdejong.com
(source: https://www.knothdejong.com/robert-knoth-antoinette-dejong.html)
About the Publisher
Hatje Cantz is a German book publisher specialising in photography, art, architecture and design. It was established in 1945 by Gerd Hatje and has offices in Stuttgart and Berlin. Hatje Cantz Verlag has a backlist of nearly 800 titles.
hatjecantz.de
(source: https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/hatje-cantz-verlag/g1218r9zb?hl=en)
Ydoc is a not for profit organisation based in the Netherlands. We care about the future of documentary storytelling. That’s why we started to develop different services that assist in making documentary stories available to an international audience.
ydocfoundation.org
(source: http://www.ydocfoundation.org/about/)
