HAND. VOL I
HAND. Vol I was the publication that launched Marvelry Imprint by Agenda Brown.
The collection of black & white photography explores the natural gestures and angles that sitters find instinctively during photographic sessions. In doing so, these gestures reveal intimate insight into character and self expression. The book features 55 images taken over a period from lockdown 2020 through to 2023, including the award winning Tamara Two.
Why HAND.? “I have had a lifelong connection and fascination for hands,” said Agenda, “Used for everything that we do in daily life, our hands can be the toughest things we possess whilst being used for the most delicate operations, their tactile sensitivity capable of detecting a single hair.”
This balance of strength and sensitivity is a metaphor for human nature, Agenda believed. “There a universal truth in hands that expands on the idea of embodied narrative and communication that have been core to my practice.” Our hands often speak for us in an unselfconscious way, to join bits of conversation together, punctuate emotion, and add layers of expression that shortcut, emphasise and signpost. At the same time they are our only other formal tool for communication – linguistic (sign language, semaphore) and narrative (Indian mudras, Japanese Noh, shadow puppetry).
Hands are also graphic, sculptural, totemic, resulting in almost zoomorphic expressions as the body takes on metaphoric qualities. “With portraits, I’ve always been interested in the shape a person occupies in the space you have given it, and HAND. extends that exploration.” “To see a hand at a scale so much greater than it is in reality, zooming in on something that more normally flashes past you in a split second in a conversation, asks you to examine it for a length of time you would never normally spend on it. There is a deeper looking, and for longer, that reveals so many layers in stillness.”
HAND. Vol I was the publication that launched Marvelry Imprint by Agenda Brown.
The collection of black & white photography explores the natural gestures and angles that sitters find instinctively during photographic sessions. In doing so, these gestures reveal intimate insight into character and self expression. The book features 55 images taken over a period from lockdown 2020 through to 2023, including the award winning Tamara Two.
Why HAND.? “I have had a lifelong connection and fascination for hands,” said Agenda, “Used for everything that we do in daily life, our hands can be the toughest things we possess whilst being used for the most delicate operations, their tactile sensitivity capable of detecting a single hair.”
This balance of strength and sensitivity is a metaphor for human nature, Agenda believed. “There a universal truth in hands that expands on the idea of embodied narrative and communication that have been core to my practice.” Our hands often speak for us in an unselfconscious way, to join bits of conversation together, punctuate emotion, and add layers of expression that shortcut, emphasise and signpost. At the same time they are our only other formal tool for communication – linguistic (sign language, semaphore) and narrative (Indian mudras, Japanese Noh, shadow puppetry).
Hands are also graphic, sculptural, totemic, resulting in almost zoomorphic expressions as the body takes on metaphoric qualities. “With portraits, I’ve always been interested in the shape a person occupies in the space you have given it, and HAND. extends that exploration.” “To see a hand at a scale so much greater than it is in reality, zooming in on something that more normally flashes past you in a split second in a conversation, asks you to examine it for a length of time you would never normally spend on it. There is a deeper looking, and for longer, that reveals so many layers in stillness.”
HAND. Vol I was the publication that launched Marvelry Imprint by Agenda Brown.
The collection of black & white photography explores the natural gestures and angles that sitters find instinctively during photographic sessions. In doing so, these gestures reveal intimate insight into character and self expression. The book features 55 images taken over a period from lockdown 2020 through to 2023, including the award winning Tamara Two.
Why HAND.? “I have had a lifelong connection and fascination for hands,” said Agenda, “Used for everything that we do in daily life, our hands can be the toughest things we possess whilst being used for the most delicate operations, their tactile sensitivity capable of detecting a single hair.”
This balance of strength and sensitivity is a metaphor for human nature, Agenda believed. “There a universal truth in hands that expands on the idea of embodied narrative and communication that have been core to my practice.” Our hands often speak for us in an unselfconscious way, to join bits of conversation together, punctuate emotion, and add layers of expression that shortcut, emphasise and signpost. At the same time they are our only other formal tool for communication – linguistic (sign language, semaphore) and narrative (Indian mudras, Japanese Noh, shadow puppetry).
Hands are also graphic, sculptural, totemic, resulting in almost zoomorphic expressions as the body takes on metaphoric qualities. “With portraits, I’ve always been interested in the shape a person occupies in the space you have given it, and HAND. extends that exploration.” “To see a hand at a scale so much greater than it is in reality, zooming in on something that more normally flashes past you in a split second in a conversation, asks you to examine it for a length of time you would never normally spend on it. There is a deeper looking, and for longer, that reveals so many layers in stillness.”
Images & Interviews: Agenda Brown; Publication design: Jan Lewis Creative; Editing: Alice Cicolini