Photobook Conversations

Edition: In Collaboration with 1000 Words Photography Ltd. Edition of 250, 2026

Size: 19.8 x 12.9cm

Binding: Softcover

No. of Pages: 160 pages

Special Notes: First published by 1000 Words Photography Ltd. (2025). Series Editor Tim Clark, Copy Editor Alessandro Merola, Production Assistant Thomas King, Art Direction & Design Sarah Boris

Photobook Conversations foregrounds discussions on and around a range of positions, practices and politics that shape the landscape of contemporary photography and publishing today. With generosity and willingness to share personal histories, experience and knowledge, the contributors in this volume encompass artists such as Raymond Meeks and Sohrab Hura, as well as individuals and collectives responsible for the ‘afterlife’ of artists’ works – designers, editors, publishers, critics, and historians – including Bruno Ceschel, Yumi Goto, Hans Gremmen, and Valentina Abenavoli. Among the organisations whose activities and ambitions are represented within this volume are BLOWUP PRESS; Center for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; Self Publish, Be Happy; Goliga; Nepal Picture Library; and Dikan Center and Photo Library, Accra.

Speaking with hope and humility, the concerns expressed by those who work with the photobook form vary from approaches to editing and sequencing images and building narrative structure to questions around the audience and market for photobooks and models for better ecosystems. Evident throughout are critical reflections on the significance of the shift of the book towards a design object, balancing choices between utilising specific materials or processes and the desire for access, the importance of books reaching other continents, and attempts to address sustainability in publishing. Exploring specific territories and different contexts for bookmaking, Photobook Conversations embraces and develops the ever-expanding space for the culture, study and appreciation of the photobook.

Photobook Conversations is edited by Ana Casas Broda (Hydra + Fotografía), Anshika Varma (Offset Projects) and Duncan Wooldridge (Manchester Metropolitan University). Sitting alongside Writer Conversations (1000 Words, 2023), edited by Lucy Soutter (University of Westminster) and Duncan Wooldridge (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Curator Conversations (1000 Words, 2021), edited by Tim Clark, it completes the trilogy of publications that explores photography and mediation through examining exhibition making, critical writing and publishing practices.