This photobook scavenges archival materials for the FOMO generation

In Cracked with life, an artist book of scavenged archival materials – 35mm photographs, super 8mm stills, poems, drawings, text messages – creator Anna Olivia Riley wanted to portray our “ferocity to miss things”. In the FOMO generation, our culture is preoccupied with anxiety and nostalgia, watching life through curated feeds and experiencing aesthetic whiplashes. One minute it’s a beach holiday, the next it’s a plate of spaghetti, the next it’s the death of one’s beloved pet – but that’s life. Cracked with life encapsulates all of these things in what feels like a beautiful ending to an era curated exclusively through Anna’s empathetic and far-reaching eye for the art of living. In engrossing diptychs that create meaning between two (sometimes unrelated) images, Anna captures hidden moments that link life events together. A brief manifesto on the back of the book reads “Narrative is not important, the recording of thoughts, feelings and aspirations is paramount.”

“Cracked with life feels like an open doorway into bookmaking,” says Anna. “I'm playing with how writing might be part of a visual practice.” The book is laid out wonderfully with touching books and often sparse images – snags of moments, zoomed in jpegs, cropped paintings that show just the right amount so that the viewer can write the rest of the story. Some pages offer questions, others answer them, but in a scattered and challenging way that encourages exploration into the larger story around pictures, within poems and outside of the page, or as Olivia puts it: “In the greys between feelings, making and discovery.” This is a coffee table book for someone looking to exercise narrative muscles as well as be visually delighted.