MEN UNDER DOORWAY is part of a series of publications that reframe the colonial archive from the British Museum. The men in the photos are natives whose identity wasn’t preserved by the photographer or the museum that owns their images. These locals were turned into objects to make the scale of the ancient Maya structures visible. I work against the original intention of the white European photographer, giving these anonymous natives the protagonism they never had in such “discoveries”. The narrow publication format makes the reader hold the book in such a way that the thumbs touch the men, making the Riso ink to stick to the skin, forcing the reader to touch the archive.

Author: Igor Arume
Year: 2024
Pages: 12
Dimensions: 25.5 x 10 cm
Cover: Softcover