LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
An absolute wow of a book which offers and encourages new thoughts and feelings. I follow Stephen Ellcock on social media, he collates images and celebrates the beautiful, different, weird and wonderful and I often stop, pause, and ponder as I scroll. His first book All Good Things, was totally gorgeous, and a LoveReading Star Book. In The Book of Change Stephen states: “I am continually driven by an overwhelming, gnawing frustration at the injustices of the world and an intense desire for something better”. He goes on to explain that this book is a response to his lifelong feeling of alienation and dislocation, and the current situation we find ourselves in 2021. His introduction sings of his wish for justice, equality, and peace for all. He looks into the past, observes the present, and reaches out to the future, to information, mass media, and power, and he addresses the issues that are plaguing our planet. He offers seven sections, starting with Source, and ending with Hope, and boy, did the images contained within evoke my emotions. I found myself being drawn into each one, sometimes caught by the obvious, sometimes looking past and through into the hidden, the darkness, the suggestive heart. At times I felt uncomfortable, I was definitely challenged, and was left feeling that this book had taken on a life of its own within my thoughts and feelings. The Book of Change, so darkly beautiful and provocative, has been chosen as a LoveReading Star Book.
Liz Robinson
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History
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About
The Book of Change Synopsis
A brilliant awakening to our vast shared potential and creative energy for change, from the beloved social media curator Stephen Ellcock.
Featuring 240 reproductions of art, photography and objects, selected from cultures through history and across the globe, as well as from living artists such as Zanele Muholi, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Ellen Gallagher, Shirin Neshat and Gillian Wearing, this is an extraordinary collection of powerfully inspiring imagery on the nature of challenge and change.
'In compiling The Book of Change my aim was to combine fragments of the visual culture of the past - drawing upon as many different traditions, geographical locations and eras as possible - with work by contemporary artists and photographers and illustrators, extracting inspiration from the raw material of the world to create a unique patchwork that attempts to reimagine existence.
'By reassembling, repurposing and repositioning fragments of the past and combining them with new visions and fresh ways of seeing, a collage of unfamiliar, unspoiled possibilities can emerge, exorcizing the ghosts of struggles, failures and traumas past, providing glimpses of a better world, of overgrown paths in the clearing, of potential routes out of crisis into a brighter, bolder future.'
About This Edition
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9781912836833 |
Publication date: |
21st October 2021 |
Author: |
Stephen Ellcock |
Publisher: |
September Publishing |
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Hardback |
Pagination: |
288 pages |
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Press Reviews
Stephen Ellcock Press Reviews
'Itinerant image-scavenging art-fugitive Stephen Ellcock returns with a new book revealing that beneath his acerbic, feral and rarefied exterior lies a large, kind and generous heart. When you get right down to it, in life and art, love is the message, and The Book of Change brings forth the codes, keys and surreal visions leading to brighter days.' Simon Armstrong, Tate Modern
'Stephen Ellcock brightens our dark world.' Kara Walker, artist
'Perfect for our time.' Adrian Searle, Guardian
Author
About Stephen Ellcock
Stephen Ellcock is a curator who has expanded his Facebook page into an online museum of images, visual delights, oddities and wonders drawn from every conceivable culture, era and corner of the globe. With over 200K followers tuning in for his selections and views, he brings the art gallery directly to the people.
More About Stephen Ellcock