Static Motion by Carl Ander

In the book Static Motion (LL’Editions, 2025), Ander recontextualize more than 300 instructional photographs drawn from his vast collection of sports, health and self-help manuals from the 20th century.

For over a decade, photographer Carl Ander has been obsessively collecting manuals illustrated with photographs on the subjects of sports, health, and self-help. Aspiring to teach everything from how to wrestle or ski to how to stretch or give a massage, these books encompass a broad range of topics and cultural contexts. Over time, Ander’s collection has grown to include hundreds of volumes published across the span of a century.

In the book Static Motion (LL’Editions, 2025), Ander presents a selection of photographs drawn from this collection—omitting their accompanying textual instructions. Removed from their original contexts, and with the logic underpinning their existence obscured, the viewer is invited to interpret these images anew. Through this act of recontextualization, Ander imbues the photographs with new layers of meaning. Detached from the utilitarian logic that once governed them, they invite new readings; at times absurd or humorous, at others unsettlingly violent or erotic.

Although their initial purpose—to instruct—has been lost, their capacity to teach is not entirely negated. Collectively, these images now seem to constitute a manual on how to photograph the body in motion. Frequently, the photographs are annotated with drawn arrows and other graphic interventions indicating direction or sequence of movement—visual cues that suggest a single frame can never fully capture motion. Likewise, when enlarged, the halftone rasters of the scanned images become pronounced, transforming into an aesthetic leitmotif that runs throughout the publication.

This selective encyclopedia of static motion marks the culmination of Ander’s sustained engagement with the photographic image as both document and fiction. The book is designed by the renowned design studio Lundgren+Lindqvist, who, for Static Motion, have reimagined the traditional form of the photobook. Dispensing with a conventional cover, the book begins with the first image and concludes with the last—on what would ordinarily serve as the back cover. Likewise, the book’s end matter is gathered at its centre, signalled by a change in paper.