Contributing to SYNC: Collaboration and Recognition

SYNC (2022)

SYNC is an award-winning artist’s book by Dutch visual artist and analogue photographer Maria Dabrowski, created in collaboration with author and cultural philosopher Joris van Merwijk. The project emerged from a shared fascination with time, attention, and the ways in which technology shapes our everyday experience of the world.

Bringing together analogue photography and cultural-philosophical essays, SYNC explores the value of slowing down, presence, and conscious observation. Dabrowski’s images invite moments of stillness, while Van Merwijk’s essays examine the impact of constant digital stimulation, the pressures of a performance-driven society, and our evolving relationship with time and leisure. Rather than illustrating one another, image and text exist in dialogue, each enriching and expanding the meaning of the other.

Since its publication in 2022, SYNC has received international recognition, including a Gold Lamp at the Dutch Creativity Awards and the Prix de la Photographie Paris (PX3). Published in a single limited edition of 300 copies, the artist’s book is now almost sold out. Next year, SYNC will celebrate its fifth anniversary.

More than an artist’s book, SYNC is an invitation to pause, to look again, and to rediscover a more natural rhythm in an increasingly accelerated world.

https://mariadabrowski.nl/projects/sync

Created between 2017 and 2022, SYNC can be seen as a timely and forward-looking exploration of themes that would only later become central to public debate: digital overload, screen fatigue, and the need to reconnect with a more conscious rhythm of living.

With the edition now nearly sold out, the final copies of the artist’s book are still available through the website below.

https://mariadabrowski.nl/shop/all/sync-2023