"The jury congratulates the author for an innovative way of presenting a personal project on such complex topics as death and eternity in connection to the forest and nature. The book features high-quality photographs that create surprising spreads and encourage reflection. Typography, when used, is embossed rather than printed, thus serving as another vehicle for the sustainability argument. Additionally, the book invites reflection on sustainability through its original and honest paper choices, which complement the use of artistic nature pictures. Despite the technical difficulties involved, the book is impeccably produced to the highest standards."

EUROPEAN DESIGN AWARDS' JURY (GOLD AWARD)

"The most unusual photobook published in Poland this fall"

KAMILA SNOPEK, FOTOPOLIS.PL 

Imagine that after death you will become a tree, part of the forest, unlimited and free energy. A lively monument will grow on you.

Eternal U is a story about the so-called good death and eternity. Through photographs of forests being natural cemeteries where the dead are buried in biodegradable urns or coffins, marked only with a previously selected tree, Humka shows a certain way of thinking about us as a code, an immortal chain of some larger universe. During life, we all draw from it, to later give it a part of ourselves:


“In each of these places, the forest itself, giving eternal rest to the people buried there, was the most important element for me,” - says Hubert Humka. - “There I photographed the soil in which they rested and the bark of the trees they became. I like to think that the roots of these trees, drawing from the people buried under them, include them in their existence, that nothing ends, that it is only our human self that changes. We become a tree, a forest, part of something bigger that reaches beyond us. We connect with the universe, we become infinite.”



Eternal U is the second, after Death Landscapes (2018), joint publishing project of Hubert Humka and BLOW UP PRESS. The book was created in the spirit of sustainable development, respect for the world and the surrounding nature, on ecological recycled papers. Its main axis are photographs of the forest (life), accompanied by negatives (death) and embossed text about leaving (traces we leave behind).



"With this book I close my own trilogy of death," - says the artist. - “In Evil Man I portrayed victims of homicide and suicide. In Death Landscapes I talked about landscapes tainted by trauma and death. In turn, Eternal U, in my opinion, brings peace, tames death, shows its completely different face."

All copies of the book are numbered.


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AWARDS

• Shortlisted for the the 2024 Arles Prix du Livre award in the Photo-Text category
• Shortlisted for the 2024 PHotoESPAÑA Best Photography Book of the Year Award (Bibliophilia category)
• Honorable Mention at the 2024 Photographic Publication of the Year award
• Gold Award in the 2024 European Design Awards in the Book Layout category
• Polish Radio 24's Glebia Ostrosci: Photobooks of the Year (Marek Grygiel)

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IN THE PRESS 

• 5ruedu.fr (in French)
• Fotopolis.pl (in Polish)
• SustainablePhotobookPublishing (in English)
• radiokapital.pl (in Polish)
• l'intervalle.blog (in French)
• Polish Radio 24's Glebia Ostrosci (in Polish)
• 9 Lives Magazine (in French)

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Photographs & texts: Hubert Humka
Negatives: Aneta Kowalczyk
Visual concept of the book & design: Aneta Kowalczyk

Photo edition: Aneta Kowalczyk & Grzegorz Kosmala
Image processing: Aneta Kowalczyk

Texts edition: Grzegorz Kosmala
Translations: Ben Borek (for English version) & Matilda Holloway (for French version)
Proof reading: Ben Borek (for English version) & Dorota Nowak-Baranowska (for French version)

Cover: soft (Ecoline Grey 290g)
Papers: Ecoline Grey 140g & Fedrigoni Materica Verdigris 120g

Format: 235x320 mm
Number of pages: 92
Number of photographs: 65
Language version: English & French

Print run: 550 copies
Printing: Argraf (Warsaw, Poland)
Embossing: Marceli Printery (Warsaw, Poland)

Publication date: September 2023
Publisher: BLOW UP PRESS (Warsaw, Poland)
ISBN: 978-83-965969-3-2