To See Stars over Mountains

To See Stars over Mountains is a book of 365 works on paper that Vlatka Horvat produced over the course of 2021 at the rate of one per day. The images are accompanied by an essay by the writer Lauren Elkin (author of No. 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute and Flâneuse: Women Walk the City) written in response to the project. Published as a collaboration between PEER and Unstable Object, publication date: February 2022.

Each day in 2021, Vlatka Horvat took a photograph while on a walk. These photographs of landscapes and urban locations became the basis for To See Stars over Mountains, a series of 365 works on paper. After printing each day’s photograph on her home inkjet printer, Horvat transforms them in different ways; by drawing or collaging on top of it, by making cuts or tears in the paper, by folding the page or relocating parts of the image.

The photographic source images used in these works were largely taken on Horvat’s daily walks in the parks local to her North London neighbourhood, while a smaller number of them arise from the artist’s travels outside of the UK later in the year. Consequently, amongst her recurring documents of urban green space and housing blocks there are occasional views from trains or planes, as well as images from walks in more distant locations – changes of landscape and context which alter the language of the work, before familiar landscapes of North London return. In one subset of pictures – forming a stark counterpoint to the motion and exterior spaces of the rest – Horvat marks a ten-day period of Covid-related self-isolation with a series of views of a residential street as seen from a bedroom window.

The 365 works that make up To See Stars over Mountains transform these photographic documents in a variety of playful and provocative ways. This book gathers all the works that comprise the project, a diary of sorts as well as a thoughtful reimagining of the landscape and its possibilities.

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