Aingurak erreketan

Jon Benito · Susa

Choosing an image for a book cover is always a beautiful thing to do. An enticing book demands an enticing cover and that is not an easy thing to get right. Eyes are love's hunters. Eyes guide us to books. Eyes see the cover of a book. They even decide which book you choose for the one you love. We start reading a book from the cover. That's why it's not an easy job to come up with an enticing cover for an enticing book. Not an easy job but also an honour money couldn't buy.
There are at least two ways to design a cover for a book. One way is to try and express the soul of the book in an image by actually reading the book and speaking to the writer. That's what I did with Haritz Cano's book of poetry titled Norbait dabil sute-eskaileran and Xabier Aldaia'a collection of short stories, Bazterrekoak. The other way is when a writer has seen some of the work you have done for others and chooses one of your designs. I don't know which of the two makes you feel happier. I only know that I felt incredibly flattered when Jon Benito told me he wanted something of mine for the cover of his first book.
They've asked me to comment on the book: the image on the front will be the first poem to die in the book. A rusty angel housed in a heart, the angel lives in need of the words soon to be set free.

Bitartean heldu eskutik

Kirmen Uribe · Susa

I meet up with Kirmen every week to get "Sautrela" together, and he told me I was going to design the cover of his book. You have to take into account that we're used to working together, matching images to words mainly. He told me it was a book of poetry and he sent me a few to read. What is behind my choice for the cover? The keys to the answer are in the book. On the one hand you have what Rikardo Arregi says in the introduction; when all the end of centuary celebrations have died down and we've gotten over the hangovers, it's time to leave aside big pompous speeches and realise that life is the most important thing we have. On the other, we're always in search of the truth and emotions and sensations are still ours; no-one will ever be able to take that from us. I also had another thing in mind. Society has to adjust itself to the world we have even though communication means information, that information often turns into contamination.
“You can't say Love, You can't say Beauty,
You can't say Togetherness, you can't.
There is no tree, stream or heart that
has forgotten the ancient ways.”
So, I started thinking about what to do for the cover and I finally came up with two ideas. The book was going to be called “Bitartean heldu eskutik” and I thought that holding hands was a very human thing. I felt that that had to appear in a very straightforward and simple way. I did a couple of samples but I thought the results were too mushy, so they were disgarded. The other option was to highlight the complete opposite of what I have just been talking about. I could focus on the dehumanisation of today's society. I came across a really good photo with that in mind: a photo of what could easily be our urban landscape, but with no brandnames or trademarks appearing anywhere, something we don't normally see. All the additives and visual contamination removed. Below that, a couple holding hands.
The photograph was take by Robert Colley and it 's the perfect example of just how filled with messages the space surrounding us is. The photographer puts the Berlin wall before it came down as an example. He defines one side as being a place without text, no advertising, no need to sell anything to anybody. The baker will put up a sign to show that the shop is a bakery but nothing is being promoted. Publicity was speechless in that urban landscape. In the west, in our part of the world, if we want to see our urban register, we have to rub everything out. That's when we will realise like never before just how colonised our capacity of attention has become.
So, "the sky above and the ground below you, the house in ruins, a few memories, a friend, a single intention are enough... And back to start from nothing, do things in a different way".