December 2017 Non-fiction Baker & Taylor Publisher Service

Nudescapes: Private Dreams in Public Places. Photographs Nu Som, Deborah Zafman

This ethereal and unusual collection of 200 photographs shot around in the world, in both black and white and color, presents the artist’s ongoing project that is an experiment in privacy and freedom.  Using the world’s public spaces as backdrop, the artist has removed all clothes and placed herself into landscapes and cityscapes to question the issue of what is private and what is public.  The result is shocking not because the subject is nude, but because of the seamless way in which her body fits into these environments without interruption, almost eliminating the divide between public and private.  The fact that these photographs even exist is something of a miracle. The work is filled with contradictions and unexpected experiences for the reader.  Never before published in book form, and seen only rarely in exhibition spaces, these very distinctive and beautiful photographs, when seen together, offer the question of what is private and what is public, and how those distinctions impact personal and group freedoms.  Emotionally evocative and artistically elegant, this totally original work beckons all investigators of humanity’s place in the universe.