A distant and unknown culture is revealed by the science fiction "Verlosen Art Collection"
The publishing house "Flip Book Books" launched the book "Verlosen Art-zbornik" on September 25 in "Public Room" in Skopje. The art anthology is an innovative publication in the field of science fiction that contains 70 drawings from the series titled "Arachknights Gothic" by Simon Kalajjiev, as well as 20 entries by 14 contributors written to complement the drawings. The author of the book is the fine artist Simon Kalajjiev, and the editor is Zoria Petkoska Kalajjieva.
- The title "Verlosen" is a word taken from the German language group and is an amalgam of the meanings "lost", "forgotten", "deleted", which also refers to the collected works in this art collection, which represent fragments of a distant and unknown culture - reveals author Simon Kalajjiev.
With "Verlosen" he makes a connection between late feudalism and an imagined post-apocalyptic future. She draws inspiration for her works from history, early modern Europe in the 15th century, humanism and the Renaissance, peasant revolts, the Reformation and other historical events. Simon Kalajjiev is an artist and futurist who lives and works in Tokyo as a professional illustrator at Nikken Sekkei architectural firm.
Other authors of some of the texts in the collection are Adam Starcaster, Brian Gunn, Willow Heath, Vlad Kuhar, Damjan Tsvetkov-Dimitrov, Carl Gernot, Christopher Arnold, Lauren Singer, Stefan Palitov, Phoebe Amoroso, Hristian Pawlowski, Julia Masetti, Joy Waller.
The translation of the texts from English is by Zoria Petkoska Kalajdzieva with Elena Korunoska Kavrakova, Nikola Gjelincheski and Gorjan Kostovski. The chief editor of "Flip Book Books" is Zharko Ivanov, and the editor of the publication is Darin Angelovski. The promoter of the art collection was multimedia artist and designer Diana Tomic.
The promotion of the book was followed by an exhibition of Simon Kalajjiev's drawings from the series "Arachknights Gothic", "Olpest" and "Arachknight Manuscripts". The promotion featured a performance by UK harpist Julia Massetti, who debuted her new single "Sonnet to the Monstrous" from Verlosen.
(The text was published in "Cultural Press" number 198, in the printed edition of the newspaper "Sloboden Pechat" on 30.09-01.10.2023)
