A New Book Celebrates the Playful and Imaginative Interpretations of Working ‘Out of the Box’

A diorama of a four-story building with the top three floors filled with books and shelves and the bottom a large black tank

All images courtesy of Tom Buchanan, shared with permission

A new book from London-based artist and curator Tom Buchanan revolves around what he terms “box art.” Encompassing what has “evolved, been created within, or even escaped from a box,” the 336-page compendium draws together more than 500 assemblages, collections, dioramas, miniatures, and other works that play with and reenvision the limits of the humble container.

Titled Out of the Box, the volume features a wide array of mediums and styles from enchanting paper dioramas by Hari & Deepti to Ben Young’s sleek glass sculptures mimicking pools and seas to Wolfgang Stiller’s charred matchstick figures. The book is organized by the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—and highlights the narratives that emerge from physically collecting and displaying objects, especially as life becomes increasingly digital. “We live, arrange, watch, and rest in death in boxes, and this collection is a testament to the absurdity and wonder that is life,” Buchanan says.

Out of the Box is published by Eight Books and is currently available in the U.K. Find more from Buchanan on his site.

A book opens to a spread featuring text and two smaller photos of wooden sculptures on the left and a boxy sculpture on wheels with branches emerging from the top on the right

A collection of small blue dots arranged by size in a gradient within a wooden frame

A drawer that opens to reveal smaller wooden and cardboard boxes and some are painted with grave waves

A book spread with the left page saying

A miniature concrete building that reads "hotel" built on a pedestal in front of a parking lot

A book spread with the left page featuring text and three boxy constructions and the right page showing a photo of an orange and white device with an attena