These are postcards from the lip of a commoditized and disheveled Eden masquerading as progressive life on planet zero. These rasterized observations are the Cliff Notes to the end of natural occurrence and abundance. Everything has a place so long as it has a price or a presence deemed valuable. If it cannot be brokered […]
The fever dream that never ended. The late Christine Furuya-Gössler is one of the more complex icons in photographic history. Her face is recognizable at a distance, and numerous exhibitions and books have been made about her and her family, mostly by her husband Seiichi Furuya, a Japanese photographer living in Austria. What makes her […]
There is something undeniably attractive in small ideas executed with precision and clarity. In receiving Cintia Tortosa Santisteban’s new book Screenshots from a series of videos about a rice field and its surroundings (Chose Commune, 2025), I am reminded that it is often the Occam’s razor of production and concept that produces some of the […]
The Bonin Islanders, 2021, Shinichiro Nagasawa, Akaaka Art Publishers The Bonin Islands, or Ogasawara Islands, are a very particular, scarcely populated set of thirty islands southeast of mainland Japan. The population consists of around 2,500 inhabitants, comprising an exceptionally interesting demographic. Historically referred to as Bunin Jima, or uninhabited, the islands were visited by […]
There is a photograph by Frederick H. Evans from 1896, entitled “In the Attics,” in which the artist captures the improbably clean space of Kelmscott Manor, the home of Arts and Crafts movement pioneer William Morris. The photograph presents the attic as a type of raw liminal space, where the viewer can identify […]
I sometimes wonder how much room there is for careful debate and an effort to understand what happens around us – positions and outrage are usually quite fixed. Recently, I have been looking out for photographic work that attempts to complicate seemingly simplistic arguments or binary oppositions through approach and practice. This review is the […]
Archival projects rarely offer a great conceptual rigor, in my opinion. As a collector of vernacular photography for over thirty years, I am often at pains to parse through projects that employ archival material, as I frequently feel that they are unfamiliar with the tropes associated with the material. I frequently struggle similarly when those […]
I have just returned from a workshop trip from São Paulo, Brazil, a vertiginous and bustling city. My experience in returning from the city has been marked by an extended rumination on my experiences there. I am still processing the city, its architecture, and its artists whom I was very fortunate to meet in […]
I do not know much about the war in Ukraine, despite living in a country that borders it. I don’t know much about it as the fog of war hangs heavily, like a thick, void-like curtain over the whole mess. The principal idea is clear. Russia has invaded its neighbor and, in doing so, […]
The legacy of intergenerational trauma is complicated to untangle. What we pass onto others and try to shield them from is often at odds with the need to unburden the experiences and traumas that have been suffered. It sags in our heart like a loose sock sliding down an ankle, a rock in the shoe, […]
What we do not talk about, dare to concern ourselves with, or pay much attention to are the men who fall through the cracks toward the end. We are happy to discuss the problems associated with masculine behaviour. Yet, we can’t imagine a discussion about men left wandering by their own devices or by […]
I am incredibly biased as I write this. I share a close connection with the artist Pieter Hugo through our Nearest Truth workshop programming. Although it might seem counterintuitive to the points I will raise subsequently, I have had a chance to hear Pieter talk about his work in detail, with all the challenging […]