“Beirut / Dubai / Tokyo” is the working title of the latest publication by photographer Martin Stöbich. However, at the end of the day, the child is answering to the name of “Beirut / Tokyo 東京 and one picture of Mt. Fuji / Happy in the U.A.E.” Rather clunky? Nevertheless, it does make sense. 404 pages. Three books. An optional Plexiglas slipcase. Three seemingly arbitrary places in the world. A total of 318 pictures. And on a good 90% of these pictures there is no human being of any kind in sight. And what does this have to say to us? In the first instance, nothing. What we have in our hands here is a very special, personal collection of photographs taken in Lebanon, in Japan and in the United Arab Emirates between the years 2010 and 2017. By and large, Stöbich hiked his way to these shots. With a small, handy, analog Leica camera. And over the course of these hiking photography sessions, in Stöbich’s head the sequences were already taking shape which would subsequently be translated into book form. The pictures are, so to speak, the film stills from Stöbich’s surveys of the areas. And this is basically what Stöbich was concerned with. Surveying areas. Classifying things for himself.