Artist Talk — 10x10 Photobooks Reading Room at the Boston Athenaeum with Russet Lederman and Lauren Graves
Episode Summary
How We See: Photobooks by Women and What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843-1999 are two essential anthologies published by 10 x 10 Photobooks. Both publications are the impetus for global community-based Reading Rooms that feature hands-on exchanges of knowledge, research and discovery. Together, we discuss noteworthy historical and contemporary books by women that foster an expansive definition, a reexamination and a reinterpretation of such a dynamic visual tool—the photobook.
In this conversation, Russet Lederman and Lauren Graves discuss, among other things:
What constitutes a photobook
The evolution of the photobook
Gendered discrepancies and the inequity of access and privilege
A lack and/or ambiguity of attribution or authorship
The personal and political visual voice of women
The artist’s concept as a driving force
Telling your own story
The image as an agent for social change
Sequencing a narrative
Context, form and content
Publication and distribution
The serendipity of open stacks
The multiplicity of ways to read a photobook
Artist Resources/Inspiration
10x10 Research Grant on Photobook History
Combachee River Collective, 1977
Lucia Moholy, A Hundred Years of Photography (1839-1939)
Naomi Rosenblum, A History of Women Photographers
Cemre Yesil and Maria Sturm, For Birds Sake
Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League's New York by Daniel Allentuck and Nina Rosenblum