Viviane Sassen’s Not Mirror is a striking photobook that brings together the Dutch photographer’s distinctive approach to colour, form, light and abstraction. Rather than functioning as a conventional photographic narrative, the book unfolds as a sequence of visual encounters in which bodies, landscapes, objects and architectural fragments are transformed into ambiguous compositions.
Sassen constantly plays with perception. Shadows conceal faces, bodies become sculptural forms, perspective is disrupted and familiar objects are reduced to unexpected shapes and textures. Her photographs move freely between the recognisable and the abstract, creating images that feel simultaneously physical and dreamlike.
The title, Not Mirror, perfectly reflects this tension. These are not photographs that simply reproduce reality, but images that distort, fragment and reinvent it. Reflection, doubling, concealment and visual illusion become recurring ideas, while colour and geometric composition provide a powerful structural language throughout the book.
What makes the work particularly compelling is the way Sassen balances spontaneity with an almost painterly precision. A hand, a piece of fabric, a patch of skin or an architectural detail can become the central element of an image, detached from its original context and transformed into something mysterious.
Not Mirror is a fascinating example of contemporary Photography Books in which photography becomes less about documenting what is in front of the camera and more about discovering what else an image can become. A visually intense and highly personal publication that reveals Sassen’s continuing fascination with the space between reality, memory and abstraction.