Why Exhibit?

Positions on Exhibiting Photographies

Together with Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger I initiated and edited the publication Why Exhibit? Positions on Exhibiting Photographies (2018). The book offers a spectrum of views on how the myriad forms of exhibiting photographies can increase our understanding of how images operate today, as well as what they do to us when we interact with them.

In the Digital Age, “photography” is best described with adjectives connoting a medium in constant flux: liquid, fluid, flexible, unstable. As such, there is no primary format for displaying photographs. However, with all of the medium’s formats, modes, and approaches, it is important to question how we see photographic images—and to ask why, by whom, and for what purposes the images were produced in the first place. By drawing upon the diverse perspectives of a group of curators, scholars, photographers, and artists based in the field of contemporary photography, this volume aims to provide a foundation for a wider discourse about exhibiting photographies in the twenty-first century.

Essays

Gigi Argyropoulou, Taco Hidde Bakker, Nicoló Degiorgis, Doris Gassert, Marko Karo, Kim Knoppers, Suvi Lehtinen, Tanvi Mishra, Niclas Östlind, Krzysztof Pijarski, Karolina Puchała-Rojek, Tuomo Rainio, Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger, Iris Sikking, Anna Tellgren, Lars Willumeit.

Conversations

Ahmed Alalousi, Lisa Barnard, Natasha Caruana, Mark Curran, Robert Knoth, Bettina Leidl, Marina Paulenka, Rune Peitersen, Susan Schuppli, Jules Spinatsch, Penelope Umbrico, Anni Wallenius.

Symposium

During the process of the writing we initiated a day-long symposium at Krakow Photomonth 2018 called Why Exhibit?: Provoking Questions about Exhibiting (Extended) Photography. The audience was encouraged to participate in a fluid way in creating content, which eventually became incorporated into the publication Why Exhibit? 

Credits
Publisher: Fw:books, Amsterdam
Co-publisher: The Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki
Partner: Foundation for Visual Arts, Krakow

Reviews

Brad Feuerhelm who interviewed me for his Podcast The Nearest Truth :

“The book is one of the very few to address the idea of how we curate photography in its multitude and is considered in my mind to be the first medium-specific book of importance on the matter. There have been a few since, but overall this is the book that should be added to curriculums.”

Brad also made an interview with Anna-Kaisa and me for American Suburb X.