Black Garden

Black Garden, second book in the trilogy, delves into the expansive geographical world known to the ancient Greeks in Turkey, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. Black Garden moves into the mythological world of duality and opposites which are explored through the masculine/feminine and east/west divide. The book is divided in half with a double gatefold seascape bringing the thematic ideas into the physical construction of the book. Included in the 154 tritone photographs are nine panoramic images. The book is dedicated to the author's grandparents who took the trans-Atlantic immigrant journey in the early part of the last century to New York.

Black Garden Trilogy Notes: Though the trilogy was constructed step by step, added on book by book, there is a cohesive structure by using consecutive chapters 1-9, and consecutive plate numbers 1-314, throughout the three books. The three books span the time frame of almost 30 years, basically the time frame of Eskenazi's photographic journeys, from when he made his first foray into the world landing in Moscow in 1991-2001, until living in Istanbul in 2010-2018. By the end of the trilogy one will see some similar images from the same contact sheets from previous books giving the impression that only a moment has passed during the last 30 years represented in these three volumes. Both Wonderland and Departure Lounge were sized to exactly fit into the parameters of Black Garden. Eskenazi says he was influenced by the religious triptychs he encountered while guarding European paintings at the museum.