The city is full of symbols – buildings and monuments that confidently remind us who we are, what our history is and whom we should honour. But these objects are not as stable as they seem. Esper Postma breathes life into the dormant side of their identity, the qualities they would rather keep from view. His installations fragment and collage objects to bring forth their doubts and unease. A Prussian eagle has a moment of introspection; a street sign reveals its many past names. Postma’s works show that every building, monument and artefact has a doppelgänger – an inner alter ego that is vying for attention.

The first volume documents Postma’s exhibitions; the second presents research material. Flip through the books simultaneously to find visual connections between work and research.

With contributions by the artist Esper Postma, Berlin-based architect and researcher Philipp Oswalt and visual artist and scholar Jasmijn Visser.

Esper Postma is a visual artist based in Amsterdam and Berlin. He was a participant of the BPA// Berlin program for artists (2020) and a research fellow at Villa Romana in Florence and the Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz (2021). He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Postma has had solo exhibitions at Canary Test, Los Angeles; EIGEN + ART Lab, Berlin; Villa Romana, Florence; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; Stadtmuseum Lindau; Moira, Utrecht and P/////AKT, Amsterdam. He has participated in international group exhibitions at KINDL, Berlin; Kunstverein Braunschweig; ArtVerona; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Moscow Museum of Modern Art; Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn; Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main, among others. He received the DAAD prize in 2014 and was nominated for the Future of Europe Prize in 2017.