Read with us 16: Photography as Relation
07 AM – 07 PM, Tues – Sun, 01 Oct – 31 Dec 2026
Sóng Sánh Café
48 Ngọc Hà, Hà Nội
From the organizer:
As a photographer whose practice is grounded in an intercultural perspective and shaped through collaborative processes, I chose relation as the thread connecting this selection. After studying the collection at Matca, I found many similarities with Sugar Paper, an independent cultural space dedicated to contemporary photography and the photobook that I co-founded in my hometown of Modena, Italy, in 2023. Perhaps both grew from a shared belief in the photobook as a powerful platform for bringing different perspectives into dialogue, while also questioning the established narratives through which we understand the world.
What interests me most about photography is not only its ability to produce images, but, above all, its capacity to create, reveal, and build upon relationships among people, between individuals and communities, between the photographer and those photographed. From this conviction emerged this selection of photobooks, which seeks to bring together a plurality of perspectives while maintaining a balance of cultural backgrounds, geographical origins, and gender. The projects presented here encompass varying degrees of proximity between those behind and in front of the camera: family members, friends, communities, strangers, and even the photographer themselves.
Despite their differences in approach and context, all of the projects presented here share a common concern: they seek to decenter the photographer as the sole producer of meaning, recognizing instead that the significance of an image emerges through a relational process in which those photographed actively participate in the making of the work, bringing their own subjectivities and agency.
I would like to conclude with a quote from Édouard Glissant that has long shaped how I think about photography: “Each and every identity is extended through a relationship with the Other.” Perhaps this is one of photography’s most profound capacities: not just to represent relationships, but to set them in motion, allowing them to continue unfolding long after the shutter has been released.
List of titles
– Pictures from Home, Larry Sultan
– For Every Minute You Are Angry You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness, Julian Germain
– Mixedness Is My Mythology, Farren van Wyk
– Hiếu Thảo — With Love and Respect, Thi My Lien Nguyen
– Look It’s Getting Sunny Outside!!!, Sohrab Hura
– Things You Wanted to Say But Never Did, Geloy Concepcion
– Subida al Cielo, Lua Ribeira
– Périphérique, Mohamed Bourouissa
– The Banda Journal, Muhammad Fatli and Fatris MF
– A Folktale From Vietnam: Speeding Motorcycles and Roasted Lemongrass, Gianpaolo Arena
– Long Time No See, Andrea Orejarena and Caleb Stein
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