ロサンゼルスを拠点に活動する写真家であり、インディペンデント写真集レーベル〈The Ice Plant〉の共同設立者としても知られるマイク・スラック（Mike Slack）の作品集。

特定の都市を歩きながら捉えるプロジェクト「Walking in Place」シリーズ。本作『Walking in Place 2: Berlin』は、前作のニューオーリンズ編から一転し、ドイツの首都ベルリンへと舞台を移しています。本書に収められるのは、都市の歴史的なランドマークや観光的な風景ではなく、コンクリートの隙間に繁茂する植物や菌類、ブルータリズム建築の即物的な肌触り、あるいは路上のありふれた落とし物といった、都市の断片的な記録です。

ヨーロッパの柔らかく屈折した光のなかで、無機質な人工物と有機的な自然物が静かに融和していく様は、まるで壮大な風景画の概念を手のひらサイズに凝縮したかのような、親密で深い詩情を湛えています。本作の本質は被写体そのものの記録ではなく、「見る」という行為がもたらす純粋な意識の探求にあります。外なる世界を静かに観察することが、いつしか内なる自己の静けさと結びついていく――。忙しない日常のなかで見失いがちな「ただ存在し、見つめること」の豊かさを静かに問いかける一冊です。

‘His situation, insofar as he was a machine, was complex, and laughable. But the sacred part of him, his awareness, remained an unwavering band of light… At the core of each person who reads this book is an unwavering band of light.’
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breakfast of Champions

In Walking in Place 2: Berlin, Los Angeles-based photographer Mike Slack offers a meditative, if not psychic, expansion on the threads underpinning the first title in his series of standalone books, Walking in Place 1: New Orleans. While his meanderings through the Big Easy saw him piece together a playful dialogue of architectural gestures, cats, flora and street ephemera – all rendered in the almost impossibly vibrant hues unique to the famed city – his strolls through the German capital shimmer with a very different palette, syntax and philosophic hue. Here, deep foliage, fungus and soft, refracted European light assuage concrete, steel and geometrics – as if the grand themes of the picturesque and the sublime were shrunken to microcosmic proportions. But this sequence of images defies its individual referents; this is not a book about bike seats, brutalist buildings, leaves and ladybugs. Rather, Walking in Place 2, like its predecessor, is about the simple act of seeing, and its relationship to both our outer and inner selves. Amidst the golden light, greenery and oblique built environment of Berlin, Slack – led by little but the specificity of awareness – renders a world that is uniquely his own. From a sea of background noise, a quality of light and a sensibility of mind awaken us to moments bordering on reverie.

More from the series:
Walking in Place 1: New Orleans
Walking in Place 3: Tokyo