Hanna Mattes - The Lunar System

The Lunar System', a photobook by Hanna Mattes, connects images shot during a total solar eclipse and in the Atacama Desert in Chile with passages of the artist's own prose-poetry. As she describes it, this all started when she was a teenager, as an innocent attempt to mythologise her life. Her friends gave each other nicknames related to the planets and stars; Mattes was the moon, and her best friend was the sun. The book is only loosely related to the solar system, however, and not at all to astrophysics. When Mattes stumbled upon the particular mythology of the indigenous people who live in the Atacama, she was reminded of her own system during the course of her life.