Launch of AG23 Magazine and review of Michael Lundgren's photobook Geomancy
Cover of AG23 Issue One: Elements
Page spread from AG23 featuring Melanie McWhorter’s review of the photobook Geomancy by Michael Lundgren and published by Stanley Barker
While many of Michael Lundgren’s landscapes subjects are landscapes (landscapes are ‘views of land’ so are subjects already?) often are located in the American Southwest – a formidable location of legend, associated with migration and the undeniable respite (means relief, so from nature or?) from the overbearing hand of nature – he states that “locale has never been a restrictive consideration… the images are more about a psychic space than a geographic one.” His sites are often untouched (no such thing anymore) and ancient – in the Southwest specifically, a place whose eternal aridity is only countered by evidence of vast sea beds trapped in layers of the sedimentary rock. His photographs represent desert lands, places defined in human terms by its inhospitable nature noted in chronicles of travelers meandering across the natural, geographical, and political lines searching for a better life or plentiful resources, sometimes in vain. — Melanie McWhorter from AG23 Review of Geomancy. Read the rest of the review here
Melanie also asked mage, priest, and diviner Sam Block to write a piece on the history of the divining craft of Geomancy as a supplimental online piece. Find Sam’s informative piece on the AG23 website by scrolling to just below the review of Lundren’s book.
AG23 is a digital and print storytelling platform with a mission to promote understanding through dialogue and art. Visit the website and read more articles and view more photography here.
Submit your work to AG23’s future printed issues or online platform here
Order a free copy of AG23 here (Shipping payment required)
Order a copy of Geomancy from Melanie’s bookshop Grenade in a Jar Books and Michael Lundgren in the US, or Stanley Barker Books in the UK.
Page spread from AG23 featuring Melanie McWhorter’s review of the photobook Geomancy by Michael Lundgren and published by Stanley Barker