Other Edens
In his first body of work, Living Room, British photographer Nick Waplington found the chaotic, multidirectional, often joyous choreography in the everyday lives of two working-class families living in council houses in Notthingham. In Other Edens, his global series of panoramic images. Waplington imposes his body as a physical and metaphorical presence in the landscape. The omnipresent artist--head shaven, and naked so as to deny the possibility of locating him in time--appears in evocative scenes ranging from Naples to Easter Island, from the Peace Park in Hiroshima to the swamps of the Louisiana Bayou. The book's text, by renowned author Marianne Wiggins, includes an interview with Waplington about his extraordinary working methods and the far-flung locations he has chosen to photograph. Invoking the spirits of Friedrich Nietzsche, Eugene lonesco, and Peter Pan, Wiggins provides a brisk and insightful counterpoint to Waplington's exceptional imagery. Other Edens integrates personal, cultural, and comic visions to present an idiosyncratic view of a planet in flux.