To celebrate the publication of Battles Vol 1 by Francesco Pedraglio, we are releasing a series of four short films created for Book Works Instagram @bookworksuk, and released from 26 October.

We would like to invite you to the following launch events, in Mexico, Turin, and online

Francesco Pedraglio’s new book takes battles as a story-telling frame to focus on the small details and absurdities that characterise almost all historical events and end up changing the course of their action. Mixed into the historical stories are personal accounts, trivial and idiosyncratic events that become elevated to the same status as those that affect history.

Each story comes with a drawing, a ‘potential stage’ for re-enacting the battle. Each story could be read as a script for a performance. Each performance could restage a battle, or simply a moment of everyday life that takes on, in that moment, the significance of a battle.

For the launch of his book, Pedraglio has produced four short videos for BookWorks’ Instagram account. Using as a backdrop one of his Teloni paintings – a large canvas mimicking a theatrical hand-painted backdrop – the clips are a staged tableau vivant, with each performance proposing a different reenactment of a battle from the book, and another attempt at mirroring the relationship between the texts and the drawings in the book.

This book is co-published with Parallel///Oaxaca and made possible through the generous support of Sistema de Apoyos a la Creación y Proyectos Culturales (Fonca), through the Programa de Fomento a Proyectos y Coinversiones Culturales 035/2020.

Order Battles Vol 1 here