We often admire the beauty of surrounding landscape. We admire its landform, plants, we contemplate HERE and NOW. But if and how often we think about what actually happened in this place in the PAST? To a large extent it depends on our knowledge of the particular place’s history. But what if we don’t know anything about it? 

DEATH LANDSCAPES is the second book by Hubert Humka. This time, Humka focuses on the landscapes. They are contaminated landscapes, marked by their history: on the one hand, they are idyllic, but on the other – they contain the stigma of the events that they silently witnessed. In the seemingly immovable landscape one can find cracks, splits, even physical scars. The traumatic events that left them were of different nature: from collective (battle field or terrorist attack) to tragedies affecting a single man (suicide or victim of a murder).

Is the ‘Love Path’ on the small Norwegian island of Utøya still as it was before the blood of the assassin’s victims soaked in? How does the idyllic charm of the place break down in the context of trauma, leaving a stripped landscape?

But most of all, DEATH LANDSCAPES is a story about man. It is an attempt to answer the question: Is a conducive intersection of time and space revealing the dark side of his/our nature? Is it possible to approach the dark truth about a man/us through landscapes?

Hubert Humka’s book contains a number of inserts that give it additional meaning. There is a report on the death penalty execution or a never published before diary of a serial killer, among others.

AWARDS

• RUNNER UP – Maribor Photobook Award 2020
• Honorable Mention – PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris 2019 – Book/Documentary
• Official Selection for Photo Book Exhibition – APhF:19 Athens Photo Festival 2019
• Honorable Mention – Polish Graphic Design Awards 2019 – Publications 2018/Album
• Honorable Mention – Moscow International Foto Awards 2019's Book – Documentary category
• Official Selection for Photo Book Exhibition – Month of Photography Los Angeles 2019
• Nominated to Prix Bob Calle 2019 du livre d'artiste
• GOLD WINNER – Photo Book of the Year – Plebiscite Fotopolis & Digital Camera 2018
• BRONZE WINNER in Tokyo International Foto Awards 2018’s Book – Documentary category
• Honorable Mention in the International Photography Awards 2018
• Finalist of the 16th Felifa Festival de Libros de Fotografia y Afines in Buenos Aires 2018
• Official Selection for Photo Book Exhibition – Scan Tarragona in Catalonia 2018

Photographs: Hubert Humka
Book design: Aneta Kowalczyk

Photo edition: Hubert Humka, Aneta Kowalczyk
Texts and foreword: Hubert Humka
Text edition: Grzegorz Kosmala
Translations: Aleksandra Duszyńska, Łukasz Smarzyński, Aleksandra Szymczyk
Proof reading: Ben Borek, Natalia Janota

Cover: hard, clothbound + photograph
Format: 178×246 mm
Number of pages: 228 + inserts + 44-page-long diary
Number of pictures: 62
Language: Polish and English

Print run: 600 copies (PL 350, EN 250)
Printing: Argraf, Warsaw

Publication date: June 2018
Publisher: BLOW UP PRESS
ISBN: PL 978-83-939917-6-1 
EN 978-83-939917-7-8