Maw∞shen: Life and Landscape of the Maritime Archaic
220 pages | 8.375” x 10.75”
124 plates | 300 edition | Hardcover Linen
Includes four-color lithograph signed on verso
Among the islands and coastal mountains of Penobscot Bay in Maine, Jonathan Levitt uncovers a mythological ecology of place— a map of the uncanny.
Informed by Paleolithic animism, western natural history, and shadow archaeology, Levitt reveals the alter-world of Mawooshen through 124 photographs of geography, plant and animal life, people, and built objects. The images are unstaged, analog, and accompanied by fragments of description.
The photographs are arranged according to the seasons in which they were taken and span three cycles. The effect is cumulative and modal like a chant. By telling the story of Mawooshen cyclically and ending with the ellipsis of a third spring, Levitt’s cosmology pushes against the linear, eschatological myth of western culture.
