"Avenue of the Living is a book that arrives as a parallel work to a film titled Aleph, by artist Iva Radivojević. It unfolds as a dreamscape guided by a prose poem that weaves through photographs, diary notes and found objects, all of which were collected during the travels and the making of the film.

Aleph, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, points to a hidden portal that contains the entire universe. When looked into, this portal unveils everything that ever existed. In his short story by the same name, Borges writes, “I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; … I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); … I saw horses with flowing manes on a shore of the Caspian Sea at dawn; I saw the delicate bone structure of a hand; … I saw the slanting shadows of ferns on a greenhouse floor; I saw tigers, pistons, bison, tides, and armies.” In a similar way, the Avenue of the Living acts as a portal, traversing space and time, an all encompassing journey.

Dislocation is one of the themes that runs through Radivojević’s films and this book is no different. Writer Dubravka Ugrešić describes the state of dislocation as having the quality of a dream in which past, present and future are folded into each other. In this state, places and people never before encountered seem familiar, and places once known feel foreign. In this dreamscape one travels through languages, and realities, floating from place to place. The protagonist of this dreamscape is a female nomad, a specter of life.

Accompanied by an audio document recorded on a 7" single

Author: Iva Radivojević
Year: 2024
Pages: 240
Dimensions: 15 x 22 cm
Cover: Softcover
ISBN: 978-0997416510
Language: English