Read with us #05 – Photobooks by women
08 Mar – 10 Apr 2023, 07 am – 07 pm
Floor 02, Sóng Sánh Cafe
48 Ngọc Hà, Hà Nội
From the organizer:
Our March showcase, curated by Nguyen Phuong Thao, highlights eight photobooks from female authors of various generations and cultural backgrounds, whose works and contributions to photography have tremendously inspired us.
In the life-long documentary project Tiny: Streetwise Revisited, Mary Ellen Mark photographed a woman nicknamed Tiny for over three decades, from a runaway youth on the streets of Seattle to a middle-aged mother of ten. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, which Nan Goldin described as “the diary I let people read”, chronicles intimate experiences in her own relationship and among her close friends against the backdrop of New York’s subcultures in the early 80s, in part paving the way for the autobiographical approach in contemporary photography.
And a Pinch of Irony with a Hint of Love, a catalog from Yurie Nagashima’s retrospective exhibition, shows how she has also faced social issues head-on through an intensely personal gaze, using self-portraiture and portraiture to challenge widely accepted notions of identity, family and gender in Japan. Drawing from the artist’s Persian heritage, Zanjir (Amak Mahmoodian) composes poetry and imagery into a heartfelt dialogue on memories and exile. Some Kind of Heavenly Fire (Maria Lax) visualizes the enigmatic story of her hometown in Northern Finland, which used to be a hotspot for sightings of supernatural events. In Night Calls, Rebecca Norris Webb meditates on her relationship with home as she drove around town photographing at odd hours, mirroring her own father’s work routines as a country doctor in Indiana.
Salt Ponds (Peng Ke) forms a collective image of fast-urbanizing cities across China through a series of poetic yet poignant landscapes. In the seminal Illuminance, Rinko Kawauchi captures the mundane yet ethereal details of everyday life, revealing the universal through the particular.
Last but not least, How We See: Photobooks by Women is an anthology dedicated to 100 photobooks by female photographers from 10 geographical regions. An initiative by 10×10 Photobooks, it seeks to prompt further discussions on inclusivity in photobook cultures. While remaining an important reference, the list was never meant to be conclusive, and much is to be filled in as we look at our own photography scene.
Follow updates on event’s page.
