In Things , Arne Schmitt explores an everyday yet complex cultural practice: going out for coffee. During a trip through Taiwan, he visited eighteen cafés, dedicating an essay to each—observations situated between global specialty coffee culture, local particularities, and personal encounters. The texts are accompanied by eighteen photographs of stones found along the island’s coastline—contemplative studies of form and a homage to collecting stones on the beach. The title refers to Georges Perec’s novel of the same name from the 1960s and the lifestyle of its characters shaped by objects and consumption, as well as to Albert Renger-Patzsch’s interwar photobook project and its focus on form. In his montage of images and texts, Schmitt brings these two lines together in a central question: is it legitimate, in politically turbulent times, to cultivate a pleasure in form?

Arne Schmitt lives in Zurich. His work deals with cities, houses, and the production of meaning.