Book Title: The Christmas Tree Bucket

Photographer/s: Trent Parke

Place of publication: Germany

Year of publication: 2013

Publisher: Steidl

Dimensions of book: 250 x 295 mm

Edition size: n/a

Binding, paper & printing details: Hard cover with gold foil, section sewn, offset colour prints on semi coated paper

Number of pages: 128

Number of pictures: 61

Designer: Trente Parke, Gerhard Steidl & Duncan Whyte

Editor: Steidl

Printer: Steidl

ISBN: 978-3-86930-206-5

Retail price: $38 EUR

Where to buy; Stores, distributors URLs:  ‘Steidl Books‘

Link/s to existing book reviews: ‘Photobookstore Magazine‘, ‘L´Oeil de la Photgraphie‘

Summary of project:

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”

The Christmas Tree Bucket is a modern-day Christmas story with a dark edge. A wordless narrative, Parke’s story is an ironic take on the typical Australian suburban Christmas. He photographs friends and family, and casts them in a twisted tale that merges fact and fiction. The viewer is left to make imaginative sense of images of barbeques, screaming children, a burning gingerbread house, and even the photographer himself vomiting into the infamous Christmas Tree Bucket. Says Parke: “It was there – while staring into that bright red bucket, vomiting every hour on the hour for fifteen hours straight – that I started to think how strange families, suburbia, life, vomit and in particular, Christmas really was…” Merry Christmas!

– Steidl