14/08/2025
Big news! CHIPS, the twin publication by Andrei Serban has been nominated at . The actual big deal is that we finally have a book design competition. See the complete list of nominees on their website, great books published in the last 2 years.
We still have a few left from a print run of 100 copies. The book was produced and it comes in a thin cardboard box, with a portrait lookbook and a replica of the photographerโs diary from the last 3 years. The diary presents the process and the photobook is the result of his work. At its core itโs a subtle commentary on the fashion world.
The photo album runs us through a 20sqm hoarderโs flat used as a background for shooting 19 different models, as well as intimate details, quiet objects, still moments captured during three separate trips taken to the very same apartment. ศerban creates set designs with stuff found in every room, exploits the clutter and turns it into a beautiful frame for the portraits.
In the faithful and unedited reproduction of his diary from the last three years, he shares details of his personal life: working on shootings, second guessing himself, writing his hopes down in pen, and documenting people he meets, shoots or loves. After reading the intimate notes and flipping through the photos from the Paris apartment, you get the bigger picture.
This is the result of a meeting between young models and this photographer who creates a space for it to happen. This intersection of emerging narratives is nothing original, but this project works as a subtle commentary on the agency-model-photographer triangle. It is insinuated as a protest against this relationship, to how things usually function in the fashion world, where you need to follow an almost predefined set of steps to get in. Serban hijacks this ladder and assembles his own type of low-budget/high-impact structure that helps him grow and get noticed.
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