Books are at the core of Alma Archive, I’d love to hear which ones have shaped your practice or your life.
Pascale Leenders: On a professional level, Gerhard Richter again. I saw a documentary about him eight years ago. He struggled for so long—experimenting, doubting—until he began painting newspaper photographs at night. Maybe the film romanticised it a little, but it touched me deeply. His work is so moving that some of his paintings in his Landscape book bring me to tears.
On a personal level, Simone de Beauvoir. I discovered her as a teenager, and when I started reading her books, she became my heroine. The letter exchange with Sartre in Letters to Sartre shows how they, despite their differents wants and needs, found each other. Although their relationship wasn’t great at all, I simply loved her intellectual style. The sense of freedom, the feminist perspective, Paris—it all inspired me.
Another book that has stayed with me is The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I admire how she weaves history, culture, politics, and family into her stories, and how she creates such rich and complex characters, Alba is my favourite.