The Documents of the Suspicious Non-Events // Anna Szaflarski

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Helen Major / A Documentary Account

AKV Berlin Publishing, 2009

Helen Major is a non-fictional account. The adventure began in August 2008 when A. M. Szaflarski placed ads in the classifieds from the Vancouver Sun, and The Province Newspaper. The ads varied from week to week, but essentially were a call for information about 'secret locations' in Vancouver and were intended to function as a platform for a series of interviews. Ambiguous as the ads were, there were few responses and only one person persistently expressed her interest; a woman that called herself Helen Major. The direction of the project takes an unexpected turn when Helen misses all of her scheduled appointments with Szaflarski, and turns the project into a detective story.

paperback , 40 colour pages,6 x 9 inches

The Peripheral Incidents from
The Documents of the
Suspicious Non-Events

AKV Berlin Publishing, 2008

Contains photo projects: System for Searching and Documents of Climbing, video project: Dropping, and the adventure journalistic project: The Secret of Poplar Island.

The Secret of Poplar Island tells the story as Szaflarski investigates Poplar Island of New Westminster, Canada. The island is located in the middle of the Fraser River near the city of Vancouver and appears to be natural, and covered completely in Poplar trees. It is exceptional as it sits between the banks of a heavily industrialized area. Industrial as well as residential activity revolves around the waterfront that somewhat faces the island.

Szaflarski interviews local residents, and constructs theories and finds amazing coincidences. Finally she travels to the island to make a surprising discovery.