Twilight Island
by Leslie Hakim-Dowek
portfolio shortlisted call 'EXTINCTION. THE WORLD WITHOUT US', 2019
Twilight island is a poetic contemplation of a time spent on a volcanic island. This book resonates with a subtext of several themes and thresholds. A succession of vistas from volcanic craters to desert plateaux is juxtaposed with landmarks of memory and recreational spaces where spectacles are set to unfold in a cycle of endless tourism. Sometimes the themes are polarised such as the vast wilderness we live in and the coming of age of two girls, my twin daughters; an earthly stage where generational rites and rituals have come into being but to which, we remain largely oblivious.
In a culture terminally ill with amnesia, in which temporal boundaries have weakened, an axis is drawn between the earthly transformations over millennia which are laid bare on this island and our compulsive stream of capture. This book is an attempt to provide a brief anchoring of an ever-transitory present within the inherent silence and stillness of a photograph.
Review by URBANAUTICA
The attention of Leslie Hakim-Dowek moves on a contemplative level. In 'Twilight Island' we are helpless spectators of an off-show. Nothing truly descriptive happens while witnessing a dialogue in a silent scenario, almost observers of an alien landscape. Or maybe it's the echo of an almost lost natural condition, perhaps betrayed by details that announce an imminent and unstoppable invasion. We are on a volcanic island, in apparent calm. Beyond, there is a poetic impulse that feeds this set of images that are well-composed and held together by a visual grace, a search for beauty, as if to reveal a possible alternative face to humanity. A message that appears subtle, barely perceptible, like a light at dusk, like the innocent and powerful gaze of a teenager who masks unconscious uncertainty about the future. A dialogue strips like a background. Among what has always been, like the memory of stones thrown by a distant eruption while the earth is being formed, and the precarious signs of the present, made of compulsive and sometimes incomprehensible gestures. The photographic one, therefore, appears as an act of conscience in the sea of oblivion. Like a volcano that strives to emerge from the sea and act as a signifier between the wandering and unperturbed waves.