Daan Paans — Floating Signifiers

A book of case studies by the Dutch artist Daan Paans on how images and archetypes change shape as they drift away from where they began.

Taking its cue from Heraclitus's panta rhei, the idea that everything flows, the book gathers ten years of Paans's research into how particular subjects came to be pictured. The cases range from the extinct aurochs and a paradise before humans to an oak tree's life in the future, meteorites in science-fiction films, versions of the Lion Man figure and the Golden Idol from Indiana Jones. Together they show ancient archetypes living on, altered, in the visual culture of today.

Photography is at the centre of his method, and the book also draws on 3D renders by Jesse Nortier and 3D printing by Joris van Tubergen. In an accompanying essay, Nicky Heijmen considers how the first meanings of cultural objects shift and what that does to society more widely. Paans, born in 1985, studied photography at St. Joost in Breda and has shown at Foam Amsterdam, Museum Belvedere and Museum CODA. This is his second book with the publisher, after Letters from Utopia (2013). Design by Rob van Hoesel.

The Eriskay Connection, 2025. 160 pages, hardcover, 21 x 28 cm. In English.