Urthworks
Ben Rivers
MACK
English
Texts by Mark von Schlegell
Softcover
160 x 210 mm
2025
ISBN 9781915743923
Urthworks draws on a trilogy of films by Ben Rivers imagining the future of a planet at three stages after environmental collapse. Working with 16mm film and digital imaging technology, Rivers captures extraordinary real locations in Japan, Tuvalu, Lanzarote, Arizona, the Mendip Hills, and Somerset as well as fabricated environments. Observational images are interspersed with fantastically costumed characters and uncanny ruins. Through these eerily resonant threads, Rivers forges a compelling blend of document and fiction which presents us with forgotten ideas of the future, stranger-than-fiction images of the present, and elemental visions of the distant future that seem to resemble the deep past. While epic in scope, the narrative that unfolds is shaped around tactile and human detail, suggesting an intimate, sensory account of vast transformations in society and nature. (Source: https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/urthworks-ben-rivers?srsltid=AfmBOooauTr7K15_ltY5CmSUcwvPbEjw0OrRYsnv-AvgoegMwdiiiuuo)
About the Artist
Ben Rivers was born in Somerset, UK in 1972 and lives and works in London. Rivers’ films are typically intimate portrayals of solitary beings or isolated communities; his practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Rivers uses these themes as a starting point from which to imagine alternative narratives and existences in marginal worlds.
https://www.benrivers.com/
(Source: https://www.katemacgarry.com/artists/46-ben-rivers/)
About the Publisher
MACK is an independent publisher of award-winning books on contemporary art, critical theory, film, and architecture. They work with pioneering creative minds and institutions across the globe and pride themselves on the rigour and care that goes into every stage of the book-making process.
https://mackbooks.co.uk/
(Source: https://mackbooks.co.uk/pages/about-mack)
