Daniela Keiser (b. 1963) is a concept and installation artist, who already has very considerable experience of working with aspects of image science, photography, collage, and language. This is also exemplified in her new group of works. The starting point for her project was Keiser’s long-term interest in the cyanography that was invented 1842 and soon put into practice by Anna Atkins (1799–1871), one of the first women to make a name as a photographer. Keiser has breathed new life into this process from the early days of photography. In a multi-step sequence, she creates cyanotypes from found photographs and digital shots of her own.

This specific photographic technique is also a trigger of sorts for various motivic and thematic hooks in Keiser’s project. She homes in on diverse phenomena: landscapes, settlements, globalisation, agricultural trade and colour per se. The cyanotypes from various thematic fields are being brought together in the book. The texts it contains take very different approaches to Daniela Keiser’s art: from philosophical, art-historical and ethnographic to astro-physical, architectural, geo-chemical, geological and poetic – creating an exhilarating, polyphonic chorus that is a fitting match for Keiser’s own artistic process.