GOOD MONDAYS: Stop the Violence

The images in Francois Robert's skeletal series "Stop the Violence" are stunning. In collaboration with 3st, he recently released a book of the images paired with President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech from 2009. On his website, Francois says:

The human skeleton is a powerful visual symbol. It’s come to represent the “remains”, what’s left after life has ended, after the flesh and mind cease to function. In my photographs, I use the human skeleton as the formal visual element, the subject of the image. In this manner, the skeleton is both the protagonist and antagonist (the Buddhist notion about, “the duality of man” seems apt).

For each photograph I disassemble the modular system of the skeleton and reconfigure the elements to form a new image. These images are man made. Images of aggression, images that cause suffering, devastation and conflict. I intend the images to plant the notion of restraint and charity in an effort to promote peace and tolerance.

This project is so powerful and a good reminder of the human cost of war, which we seem to so often forget.

The book, published by Classic Color, has sold out but I hope they'll print more in the future.


(book / images)