The Quickening: A memoir on matrescence
Special Edition + “Veil” print
SOLD OUT
US$180 // *150 Euros // *AU$230 inc. postage
Signed and numbered book 1 - 15
8 x 10 inch signed and numbered Collector’s Print, titled “Veil”, in edition 1 - 15
Special Edition + “Cake” print
SOLD OUT
US$180 // *150 Euros // *AU$230 inc. postage
Signed and numbered book 16 - 30
8 x 10 inch signed and numbered Collector’s Print, titled “Cake”, in edition 1 - 15
*indicative exchange rate
First Edition
SOLD OUT
US$120 // *100 Euros // *AU$155 inc. postage
Signed and numbered book 31 - 280
*indicative exchange rate
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“The Quickening is ambitious, subtle, inventive and deeply moving. I can hardly remember the last time I encountered a work that made such wise use of tactility in achieving a photographic vision. So many good decisions.”
- Teju Cole
The Quickening details the claustrophobia, myopia, paradoxical loneliness and luminance of new motherhood and the postpartum period.
Riso and offset printed, this uniquely handmade book was published in a limited first edition of 250 copies, redolent of the number of days of gestation before the premature birth of the author’s son. Additionally, 30 copies from a special edition each come with a choice of one of two prints. This number is indicative of the number of days left until the child’s due date. Created as an editioned art book, each copy is signed and numbered. A variety of papers were used to reflect a haptic complexity in addition to a soft french fold that feels full and fleshy in the hands. A chaotic and varying bind with red string is a nod to the stitches used during the emergency caesarean birth of the child and no book is precisely the same.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Lucie Foundation Prototype Book Prize, the Perimeter x PHOTO2021 International Book Prize, SIPF Photobook Award 2022 and awarded with the silver award for the 2020 BIFA Documentary Photo Book Prize and the Australian Photobook of the Year, Official Selection for the London International Creative Competition 2020, a winner of the Belfast Photo Festival 2021, bronze medal for the Documentary Book Prize at the 2021 Moscow International Foto Awards and Honorable Mention at the PX3 Paris Photo Awards and the Tokyo International Foto Awards.
Prior to publishing, the project has also won multiple recognitions, including Honorable Mention in the Julia Margaret Cameron Award, a finalist place in the Vevey Images Grand Prix, participation in the celebrated group show titled, “Birth,” at TJ Boulting Gallery in London and a solo show at Rencontres d’Arles in France in 2019.
SEE THE PROJECT
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90 pages with 116 images
French fold
Combination of offset and riso print
Various uncoated papers
Softcover with linen sleeve
8.6 x 11 inches
First Edition of 280 + 20 AP
Self Published
Photos & text
© 2021 Ying Ang
Design
Heijdens Karwei, Amsterdam
ISBN: 978-0-646-83323-1
Printed in the Netherlands
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Critical Reviews:
"The Quickening wears its handmade-ness on its sleeve. A ream of loose papers held together with a complex patterned variation on a Japanese stitch tells the reader that this is a personal and intimate document… The cacophony of imagery we are presented with oscillates between the manic, the incredibly dark, the gentle, the dreamlike and the intimate… Ang’s book is an exploration of photobook making, and how narrative works in the visual book form—it pushes and stretches concepts of storytelling, of showing and revealing. And finally, it’s a moment of total honesty and openness told in the only way it could have possibly been told."
- Daniel Boetker-Smith for Lensculture
"Work like Ang’s has such profound value for articulating hard-to-reach experiences that language often fails to capture. She entangles the viewer in the web of social and political issues surrounding the transition into motherhood that are too often ignored and overlooked... The psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote, “only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life” – a sentiment that manifests in Ang’s book over and over again"
- Gem Fletcher for Creative Review
"Ang’s images are carefully composed and meticulously photographed, showing a mastery and deft use of photographic technique. She uses a wide range of tonality, lighting, contrast, and printing methods to produce different textures and moods, as well as many unexpected transitions from page to page. Many images burst at the seams with symbolism and layers of meaning, resulting in work that rewards repeat viewing and contemplation."
- Andy Pham for Paper Journal
"The pictures in The Quickening are a gorgeous cacophony of tender and tension-filled scenes interwoven with moments of luminosity which show how easily the lightest moments of motherhood can slip into the difficult ones (and back again). There’s a softness to the pictures, too – a dreaminess that feels like the first moments of waking up, where everything is a little blurry and sleep images linger."
- Joanna Cresswell for Refinery29
"Ang’s depiction of matrescence is layered and complex. Her images blend the gentle and soft, with a strain and rawness that becomes all-consuming. Velvety skin is enveloped in warm, delicate light. But, motifs of that tenderness behind misted glass at once suggest fullness and a claustrophobic repetition. The narrative is textured and sensual; it mirrors the intensity of Ang’s lived experience."
- Izabela Radwanska Zhang for the British Journal of Photography