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