Named one Best Photobooks of 2020 by Vogue Italia, Conversations at the end of the universe, Augustine Paredes' debut artist book, published in 2020, catapulted his continuous journey of self-publishing. This book holds a series of 12 poems and 19 images, with foreword written by Raz Hansrod. Sold out shortly after its release, the limited edition artist book "is redefining what independent publishing looks like in Dubai’s art scene."
Conversations at the end of the universe starts with a celebration and continues to celebrate as the world burns, and then gently, tenderly ends with a reminder—to take care. It is a collection of poetry and photographs that examine the ephemerality of human existence. Between questioning mortality and investigating death, this body of work aims to create a fictional space to have conversations, to question and make sense of times like these when it has neither been better, nor been worse.
ISBN 978-3-00-066354-3
Limited edition, 100 copies
Publisher: Augustine Paredes
Year: 2020
Pages: 50
Dimensions: 5.8 x 8.3 inchesCover: Paperback with Dust Jacket
Binding: Perfect Binding
Process: Digital Printing
Printed: Color
Preface
I started thinking about mortality when my friend died all of a sudden. It was not a heart attack; it was a strange and untimely death in the middle of July. He fell on the floor, got up, went home, and then the hospital. On that same day, he died. And then my grandmother whose health worsened over time, eventually, passed. I barely turned 25, and it was supposed to be the start of the beginning of my life.
Then, I would think about my ephemerality as a human body. With every cigarette I smoke, some say, I take away a few days of my life. My grandmother never smoked. My father did. My friend did. And I counted the number of cigarettes the people I've lost smoked, and then I started counting mine. It felt like counting wishes and blessings and prayers. I was talking to an abyss, or the same god I recite Psalms to when I was a child. And then I think about my mother.
My mother who put a lifespan on her hopes and dreams for her children, sleeps alone at night, exhausted from all the work she does. Sometimes she goes to my father's grave and asks him questions the same way I talk to an abyss. Maybe she knows the god I recite my Psalms to since it was she who asked me to memorize the verse she had cross-stitched.
"The Lord is my shepherd," she would recite after me.
There is a valley of the shadow of death and I walk through it, back bent over, exhausted from carrying the prayers and sins I pray for the ones I love and the ones I have yet to love.
Every step is a celebration and a silent song is prayed.
The Peachness of Peaches
What does the softness
of the peach remind you of?
Oh, but, it is sweet first before it is soft,
and then something else.
Elsewhere, someone else
is thinking about the same peach
and its pinkness before its orangeness
and then, finally its taste.
Like a love that sprung in summer:
sweet saliva,
sweaty skin,
tangy tangled hearts.
This peach is imported from Lebanon.
Where lovers kiss freely, yet loving
comes with a cost.
There, there is a revolution happening
and it does not taste like peach, sometimes.
But maybe peaches take time,
Before they become actual peaches.
For now, here are apricots.
Here, they have come
after endless promises of tomorrow.
Finally apricots are here.
Peaches will take time
but for now, apricots.
My First Memory of Insulin
My mother's mother knows no pain,
she deals with grief when she has time.
At dawn, many, many moons ago
she was shot with a bullet
on her left calf, leaving her walkless.
For months she sat down looking after, over
everyone she loved and unloved
until she could finally walk again.
Her hands would tremble and shake,
as she pokes the needle through her skin.
In between hypoglycemia and diabetes,
she and I would share a glass of Coca-cola.
I would hold her hand and ask her,
be strong enough so I could sit on your lap,
like how I did during somber summers
in the north of Cotabato.
My mother's mother knows no pain,
she only prays to god when she has time.
Sixteen times straight, before Christmas,
she would wake up at 4 in the morning,
make her first cup of Nescafé,
start walking to the church and sit at the back.
I wonder what she prays for when she prays,
but only god knows
for they speak the same language of acceptance,
forgiveness of sins and cheating husbands,
greedy daughters and violent in laws.
My mother's mother knows no pain,
she only suffers when she has time.
For All The Nights
I Danced With You In My Sleep
I will be honest,
I have forgotten your face.
But there are days when I feel
your eyes follow me to the dark.
Your gaze—It is not light.
It does not have hands,
but it guides me somehow,
it embraces me in ways that do not
make my tiny hairs stand.
Daddy,
Did you see me kiss that boy
in the alley at Södermalm?
Did you see me dance the night away
at SchwuZ with the love of my life?
Were you there when I cried
on the way home to Mintal
after a boy told me I was not enough?
Because somehow, you were there.
Like magic, like an enchantment
enchanting.
In my dreams,
we were all in white and I was held —
your hand on my back, and your mouth
darkened from all the cigarettes you smoked,
your breath vibrant of alcohol —
you were vibrating a radiance
that only you could give.
In my dreams,
it was Christopher Cross, singing Sailing.
A song that came up in Saless
when I first kissed a boy in public.
A song that played on your dying day.
A song that Mama cried to, singing.
In my dreams,
we were dancing
until the morning came and
you had to go.