Collaboration

A Potential History of Photography

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A new, revolutionary history of photography from a stellar team of writers and thinkers that challenges all existing narratives by focusing on the complex collaborations between photographer and subject

Collaboration presents a groundbreaking and multifaceted history of photography which explores photography through the lens of collaboration, challenging the dominant narratives around photographic history and authorship. In a vast, collaborative effort led by five of the great thinkers and practitioners in photography that includes more than 550 photographs and over 80 text contributors, this book breaks apart photography’s ‘single creator’ tradition by bringing to light tangible traces of collaboration – the various relationships, exchanges and interactions which occur between all participants in the event of photography.

This book offers the keys to understanding and decoding the complex politics of seeing. The conditions of collaboration in photography are explored through over 100 photography projects, divided into eight thematic chapters. The photographs from each project are presented non-hierarchically alongside quotes, testimonies, and short texts by guest contributors. These networks of texts and images provide perspective on a vast array of photographic themes, from Araki’s provocative portraits of women to archival files from the Spanish Civil War.

Collaboration is not an ultimate account of what photography is, does, or means. Rather, the book is an inspiration for teaching and an open invitation to scholars, activists, photographers and others to practice always with and alongside others and participate actively in this engagement and enquiry.
Extent: 288 pp
Format: Hardback
Illustrations: 724
Publication date: 2023-11-02
Size: 28.5 x 21.5 cm
ISBN: 9780500545331

Press Reviews

[An] excellent challenge to the
Publishers Weekly

A necessary book that forces readers to reconsider the very meaning of the word ‘by’ in the context of photography ... This book isn’t just a thought-provoking presentation of projects that involve different forms of participation. Its pluralistic approach is a living, breathing reflection of the concept at its heart
Creative Review

We get a fresh perspective every time we turn the page, a new set of ideas to consider and some specialist information on situations and subjects we may not have known anything about before … It took the collaborators a decade, the book says, and I can see why … an engaging, informative and thought-provoking collection of studies on the relationship between the people either side of the lens
Amateur Photography

An extraordinary book ... should inspire and provoke new discussions and lines of enquiry - indeed new ways of thinking - about the act of image-making and how we should understand the role of the photographer and the social dynamic within which they work
Photographica World

About the Authors

Ariella Azoulay is a Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Comparative Literature at Brown University. Wendy Ewald is a photographer who has collaborated on art projects with children, families, women and teachers for fifty years. She has published twelve books. Susan Meiselas is a documentary photographer and member of Magnum Photos since 1976. Leigh Raiford is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Laura Wexler is a Professor of American Studies, Film & Media Studies and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Yale University.

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