Isabel Carvalho, Clara Batalha, Vanessa Badagliacca

Begründung der Jury

★★
Portugal /// Portugal
★★

The Ovaries of Poppies is a delicate and modest book that commands attention precisely through its small scale and apparent fragility. Extending the ecofeminist exhibition of 2018, the publication embraces ephemerality as an intrinsic quality, aligning its material condition closely with its conceptual framework.
The binding consists solely of four-fold sections glued along the spine. This restrained construction allows the pages to open wide, revealing long friezes that rhythmically organise the artists’ ideas. The exceptionally fine 40 grams “biblical” paper, printed in offset sometimes on one side and sometimes on both, makes subtle use of varying degrees of transparency, creating an interplay of concealment and revelation. Like petals, the pages evoke the delicate materiality of poppies – flowers whose disappearance from the fields the artists seek to address.

The colour scheme establishes a natural symmetry: a red exterior recalling poppies, and a dark green, almost black, for the three principal texts. At the very centre of the brochure, all four primary colours appear in a dance illustration, where their shades merge and intermingle. Blue distinguishes the essay written specifically for the book by Vanessa Badagliacca, marked by a line of the same hue along the page edge.

Despite its modest dimensions, the book does not go unnoticed. It invites readers to handle it as one would a flower. This material sensitivity enhances rather than limits the reading experience. A highly accomplished typographic layout, precisely attuned to the format, fosters an intimate and remarkably clear encounter with the content. A simple, poetic and exemplary design – delicate, bold and lucid at once.