“As all lovers are inclined to, they are ready to forgive the object of their desire for everything—boredom, malice, whims, and fancies. As all lovers are prepared to, they are ready to do whatever it takes to keep their love burning: ready to ruin their life and that of others, to wreak havoc, to neglect all but what relates to their beloved. Rather than new heralds of rational thought roaming the city, alchemists of today fiercely fight under the banner of Eros. First step would be to call them by their true names, instead of the traditional terms we have gotten used to, like ‘intellectuals’ or ‘intelligentsia’: they are amateurs, they are lovers”.
— From Emanuele Coccia’s essay in Modern Alchemy (2021), which, interspersed with Viviane Sassen’s intimate photographic collages, celebrates a creative and philosophical perspective of all living things, inviting us to redefine the infinite beauty of art and nature.
All photography by VIVIANE SASSEN for Modern Alchemy
JBE Books & Perrier-Jouët, 2022
This is an excerpt from an editorial published in the second issue of hube magazine. For the full experience, you can buy a copy here.
