Upward Downwards & Upwards again

In the early hours of February 5th, my dear friend Joachim Baan passed away in The Netherlands. We had known each other for years and shared common passions for beauty, art and life. He was the one who turned me into an illustrator by giving me my first commission (a Paris city guide). You can guess how important this guy was in my life.

We had been working together on a small side project he initiated. You'd never say no to Joachim. As all side projects we took it slow. So slow in fact that he got tired of waiting and left me alone to finish it. Damn.

In his honor and his family's, I thought it would made sense to publish this posthumous version of his original idea, but make it all about him. He would have hated this, humble as he was. But I think he'd have understood.

If you are interested, here's the background of the project as Joachim conceived it:

Another Special Project
December 2024

“Upward Downwards” is a collaborative project by creative director Joachim Baan and Tokyo-based illustrator Luis Mendo. At its core lies Images de l'Himalaya, Encyclopédie Alpina Illustrée by Italian mountaineer and photographer Vittorio Sella. These historic pages—once celebrating the heroic ascent of mountains and the Sherpas who bore the heaviest loads—are reactivated as living canvases.

On these historic pages, Luis Mendo layers new drawings of figures bent under impossible loads, not of survival, but of objects, possessions, and distractions. His illustrations transform the photographs from heroic admiration into uneasy reflection, confronting us with the Sherpa as a timeless symbol: no longer just carriers of life's necessities, but mirrors of the invisible, unnecessary weight we all drag along today.

Because our climb has not ended. Only the mountain has changed. In the age of capitalism and consumerism, we are urged ever upwards, towards more possessions, more distractions, more illusions of progress. Yet each step upwards deepens the downward pull. We rise, but under the crushing gravity of excess.

See also:
Encyclopédie Alpina illustrée by Vittorio Sella (Italian photographer and mountaineer).

More Joachim (just a glimpse):
His newsletter, his personal website, his studio website, his instagram, his are.na and music he liked.