Lost Volcano Casino is an online publishing device developed with Xenia Strahl as part of Alёna Koleso’s MA research in Design: Publishing Futures at DELLI, Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, and in response to Artwork Outside the Gallery (Stolen Books, 2025).

The platform invites visitors to access a random photograph from the book and respond to it with an image from their own archive. These responses gradually form a new, collectively produced archive, which will be edited into the final publication of Koleso’s Lost trilogy, following Lost Object (Samopal Books, 2021) and Lost Connection (Samopal Books, 2024).

Rather than gathering material before beginning the editorial process, Lost Volcano reverses the sequence: the publishing structure is established first, while its material is generated through participation, chance and unpredictable connections between images. The resulting publication therefore remains unknown to both its contributors and its editor until the process is complete.

The project explores publishing as a system of collecting, editing and circulation, while questioning authorship, hierarchy and the role of the artist as an organiser of conditions rather than a sole producer of content.

Art direction: Alёna Koleso
Development: Xenia Strahl
Format: online platform / publishing experiment
Related publication: Artwork Outside the Gallery, Stolen Books, 2025
Part of: Lost trilogy, MA Design: Publishing Futures, DELLI, Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon
Year: 2026

Lost Volcano Casino
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