One person’s rubbish is another’s treasure: This folded photo series transforms trash into objects worthy of still life

When Salina, the collaborative design practice of Eugenia Luchetta and Marco Minzoni, reached out to Anna-Sophia John for its first issue of Obsolete – a periodical sent by post – the photographer was instantly drawn to the project’s focus on materiality and community. A printed mailer that “investigates objects that have exhausted their function, lost their purpose, been replaced or are simply no longer in use,” through image making, Obsolete was the perfect fit for a photographer that has mastered the art of the still life (as we saw in her photobook Sweet Bitter last year).

Each issue of Obsolete will feature a different photographer with a distinct theme and format, all sent by post with a simple stamp, and issue one opens the series with a visual exploration of “the juxtaposition of natural and artificial pieces of packaging,” Eugenia tells us. At its roots, the new publishing pursuit came from Salina studio’s love of printed matter and collaboration. Eugenia says: “In our jobs as designers and in the creative industry, we perceive the looming sense that they are obsolete in the wave of AI and new tech. Instead of getting away, we wanted to reclaim that space of outdatedness and play with it.”

When the trio were first discussing responses to the theme of Obsolete, they quickly realised that they were coalescing around the idea of “packaging as vessels left behind that still carry the physical traces, shapes and weight of what has been consumed”, Marco says. Through the lens of photography, Anna went on to explore the things we discard or leave behind with a contemporary eye. Egg shells and chewing gum wrappers appear unfamiliar enough to look like high art, tin cans draw new attention to their form when gutted and unbranded, and even an onion skin can look like a rose petal with the right styling and colour pairings. For Anna, the project “became a platform to play and try new things, from making the images, to envisioning how the images sit inside an envelope, what an envelope can be”.

For the design of the publication, Eugenia and Marco had one small but very interesting limitation as their brief: “the issue could take any shape and format as long as it stays within the Royal Mail limits for the size of a letter (240 x 165 mm, 100gr),” says Marco. The trio landed on a clever fold-out formula that packs down beautiful double-sided prints from the series into an unbound booklet, where the edges of one object can satisfyingly line up another across spreads. “The design of issue one was developed as a response to the photos, with Anna closely involved in all the decisions,” Eugenia says. “We didn’t want to add any unnecessary elements, and rather focused on how to make the most out of the photos.”

Eugenia and Marco are already working with a photographer for the second issue, and are keen to explore future possibilities for Obsolete both in its content and construction. For the design duo, the flexible format publication has a very broad set of themes and ideas to continue to draw from for its inspiration: “Being obsolete can be perceived and experienced in many different ways: something that has been replaced by something new, completed its function, lost its purpose, worn out because of usage, deteriorated because of time, or just gone out of fashion,” ends Eugenia.

Issue one is now available to buy on the studio’s website.