Title: Vertigo
Author: photography and text by Alexandra Huddleston
Vertigo is a limited-edited, hand-bound book that weaves together text and photography as it explores Iceland’s mercurial geography. On this island in the North Atlantic, in minutes, a mountain can disappear or a valley can become a river of lava. The rapid flux in the weather, the midnight sun, and the polar night, all provoke a feeling of disorientation. From small changes in light, weather, season, and the actions of beast and man, to enormous tectonic cataclysm, past and future upheaval waits within the stability and stillness of each photograph.
Status: published, November 2016
Imprint: The Kyoudai Press : Blind Cat Valentine LLC
Photographs: 24
Text: introduction and titles
Language: English
Medium: Hard-cover, Double-section case-binding; Iris Bookcloth, sculpted front cover with tipped-in photograph
Size: 8.5” by 8.5” by 0.625” / 52 pages
Note: Each copy is printed and hand-bound by Alexandra Huddleston
Edition: 5 (+ 1 artist proof)
Cost: $420.00 (includes US shipping) / $440.00 (includes international shipping)
For more details on purchasing contact the artist directly at: kyoudaipress {at} gmail.com
View more photographs as a portfolio HERE
About the Author
Alexandra Huddleston is a photographer, writer, and walking artist. Her most recent projects describe landscape as a space of dynamic change. It’s a vision gained by walking thousands of miles in the last two decades. Alexandra brings motion through time and space into her work, expressing what it’s like to be within an ever-changing landscape. Through this process, she has radically expanded how landscape is represented photographically.
Alexandra’s research into the impact of walking on perceptions and depictions of landscape is conducted both independently and with the support of art organizations like Cow House Studios, Ireland and Cill Rialaig, Ireland. Between 2009 and 2014, she walked thousands of kilometres on pilgrimage in Spain, France, and Japan – solitary journeys that led to her current walking art practice. Most recently, she explored the Rurban landscape in the Netherlands during a masterclass at the Jan van Eyck Academie (2019) and photographed the project Traces of Time while an artist in resident at the Boghossian Foundation – Villa Empain (2021 Belgium).
Alexandra presents her work to the public through her books, exhibitions, and lectures. Her books are collected in libraries around the world, including the British Library, the Brooklyn Museum, Harvard University’s Hutchins Center Library, New York University’s Bobst Library, and University of Cape Town’s Oppenheimer Library. As creative director and co-founder of the Kyoudai Press, Alexandra’s major publications include Lost Things (2012), 333 Saints: A Life of Scholarship in Timbuktu (2013), East or West (2014), Vertigo (2016), and Traces of Time (2022).
Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone and raised in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and Bamako, Mali, her upbringing has led her to explore landscape and culture from an international and interdisciplinary perspective. Alexandra holds a Masters of Letters in Fine Art Practice from the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. She studied broadcast and print journalism (MS) at Columbia University, USA and fine art and East Asian studies (BA) at Stanford University, USA.