Berlin

This photographic statement is a chronological record of an obsessive four-day walk through one of the twentieth century’s most battered cities. Rosa Smalen crisscrossed Berlin with her eyes and camera pointed down, unflinchingly recording the worn-out and often patchwork sidewalks that carried her along. The pavements of Berlin silently bear witness to great turmoil, and so does Smalen, who managed to recover from a coma after an accident that nearly took her life. Facing the site of a trauma exceeding her own, Smalen set out to keep it simple and focus on the literal ground beneath her feet, an act to which this book forms a determined and resilient testimonial. (Taco Hidde Bakker)