Paul Sietsema’s book At the hour of tea accompanies his film of the same name. Taking as their starting point an office or study in the year 1929, the book and the film explore notions of collecting. As publisher RITE Editions explains, “A filmic space is developed within the pages of the book, moving through and layering the film’s imagery via a system of cut portals and transparent screen-like pages. The film presents a sequence of tableaux of objects common to the desktop or study. Sietsema employs a language of clichéd ‘collectible’ objects — Roman glass, coins, minor antiquities, and the like — to invoke the idea of a salon or space of contemplation as a parallel to the contemporary studio, and the idea of a kind of leisure-based consumptive creativity more and more shared by present-day producers and consumers of culture. Drawing on the design idea of skeuomorphism common in modern computer interfaces, Sietsema fills his tableaux with now-outmoded items that still live on as mere icons of their former functions.”

Paperback with laser-cut paper jacket
160 pages, 80 images
6 × 8 inches; 15 × 21 cm

ISBN 978-3-95679-078-2