Artist books function as private archives made public. They collect the material that exists outside commission work, the experiments nobody asked for, the images that accumulate in folders and drawers and phone cameras without clear purpose until someone decides they add up to something.
ONE THOUSAND SCARS AGO gathers five years of Brodie Kaman's non-commercial work into 336 pages. The book moves between scanned scraps, personal experiments, found objects, and iPhone photos. No single aesthetic governs the collection. Instead, the images shift between registers: the everyday made strange, intimate moments that resist easy consumption, unsettling compositions that linger without explanation.
This kind of project requires editorial restraint. The temptation when compiling years of personal work runs toward either too much curation (imposed coherence where none existed) or too little (every file dumped chronologically). Kaman's approach keeps the range of material while letting patterns emerge organically. The sequence builds meaning without forcing narrative.
The edition runs 300 copies, published by Year Zero and printed by Rota. The physical object matters here. These images originated across different formats and contexts: analog scans, digital captures, found ephemera. Binding them into a book creates new relationships between materials that never shared the same space before. The act of turning pages establishes rhythm and pacing that gallery walls or Instagram grids cannot replicate.
The launch happens March 1 at Librairie 1909 in Paris, 17:00 to 19:00. The bookstore location suits the project. Librairie 1909 specializes in artist publications, photography books, and independent press work. The audience there understands what artist books do differently than commercial monographs or exhibition catalogs.
ONE THOUSAND SCARS AGO arrives without the promotional machinery that accompanies bigger releases. No gallery partnership, no institutional backing, no critical apparatus built around it in advance. Just the work itself, printed and bound, available for whoever wants to spend time with images that accumulated across five years of making things outside the commercial circuit.
March 1. 3 Pass. Guilhem, Paris 75011. 17:00-19:00. Soon available on yearzero.com.