Bird in Flight Prize ‘20 Finalist: The Book Of Miracles

Igor Elukov, Russia

The series is titled after the Augsburg Book of Miracles, a 16th century German illustrated manuscript listing the supernatural phenomena from the Flood to the time of the book’s completion. The events described in the manuscript reveal the involvement of God in the human world.

In contrast, I read “The Book of Miracles” from the position of cosmocentrism. It is a story about forces and elements that are indifferent to us and capable of destroying us; and about the need to seek harmony with these forces, the good and unkind premonitions and the fragility of life. It is a view of an ecosystem in which it is impossible to separate man from nature and nature from space.

My goal was to find technology that allows only partial control of the result so that each picture was taken in collaboration with the elements, landscape, and fauna. Creating images in reality, rather than using computer technology, provided the necessary restrictions on the artist’s power.