The main idea of Editions Sable Noir is to offer visibility to unknown artists and photographers through an editorial design project. By this approach, we want to complete the existing art books offer by collaborating with artists who don’t have necessarily an established career but who have a practice off the beaten track.
Some author has very clear intentions, some other are more instinctive and need a “fil d’ariane” to express what they want to tell. With closed collaborating with authors, Editions Sable Noir selects unpublished projects from new or archival works and accompany their reflexion until a finalised dummy book, and sometimes, we produce and publish its.
We deeply think a book can be the beginning…
Editions Sable Noir is founded in 2017 by Florence Larbey, creative director and Réza Kalfane, photographer, based between Paris, Geneva and Rennes in Brittany.
Réza Kalfane is a photographer specialised in Arctic Circle destinations. He first visited Iceland in 2012 and immediately fell in love with its enigmatic and vast landscapes. Over the course of his visits, Iceland became a second home for Réza, as well as a source of photographic and cultural inspiration for him. He also organises photo tour in Island, Lofoten, Lapland, Faroes Islands and soon in Greenland with 66° Photo Explorers.
Florence Larbey is creative director since 2007 in various fields. She likes to create graphical univers for brands or music projects but her first passions have always been Photography, Book Design and Travels. She started Photography during a 5 months trip through United States, Guatemala and Middle East, then she followed the Beaux Arts of Paris class for 3 years in Contemporary Photography. When she met Réza, their common passions matched immediately.
Hey, let's make a photobook together!
Their collaboration started with the first photobook of Réza, ÍSLAND. It was a wonderfull experience for them. They created, produced, published and distributed themself a small edition of 500 copies all over Europe, US, South Korea, Australia and they participated at some photobook festivals (Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, La Nuit du Livre, Photobook Brighton). In few months, ÍSLAND was sold out and they thought they need an other book project… Naturally, they decided to founded a little independent publishing house called Editions Sable Noir, a direct reference to the black sand of icelandic coasts where their first project was born. And as it says in Iceland, Þetta Reddast!
From handmade book to published copies, Editions Sable Noir is also an experimental laboratory for Book Design. Mostly of our projects are handmade before to decide to produce them. We cut, fold, glue, sew prototypes and sometimes we make deluxe editions in very limited quantity. For some collaborations, we make handmade dummy book.
