Russet Lederman

Lensculture: This anthology documents ‘How We See’, a travelling public reading room comprising 100 photography books by an international range of female photographers. Although women have made significant contributions to the rich history of photobooks, their numbers in prominent publisher inventories and among widely promoted books are relatively small when compared to their male peers. This close examination of the distinctive qualities of these books by women, such as content, show more design, and intellectual attributes, offers a means of understanding and re-establishing their place within the photobook practice and genre. Includes an annotated history, essays, and reference lists.

Born from a united interest in collecting photobooks and tracing their legacy and dissemination, 10x10 Photobooks was founded by three fervent enthusiasts — Olga Yatskevich, Russet Lederman and Michael Lang. After a panel discussion about their new publication at Shakespeare & Company in Paris this past week, Lederman sat down to speak to LensCulture about the history of their journey, and how it lead to their most recent publication, How We See: Photobooks by Women.

“10x10 is a collaborative group of three people,” Lederman explains. “We are three different generations — Olga’s in her thirties, I’m in my fifties, and Michael’s in his sixties. We are all collectors, and it really started as casual meet-ups — just us getting together to talk about photobooks. But then we realized that there was this larger community we could be a part of.” Together, the trio organizes public events in the form of salons and what they call “reading rooms” — touring interactive exhibitions of photobooks that invite viewers to sit and leaf through a curated selection of works.

Rather than placing the books in the confines of a vitrine, just out of reach of their audience, an emphasis is placed on the tactility of the objects. Lederman reflects, “There have been many photobook exhibitions recently, and one of the problems when books become rare and expensive is that they become untouchable. They get put behind glass. Some venues have also come up with page-turning video systems, or a kiosk, but it’s still not the same. At 10x10, our caveat is that the books must be accessible. It’s why we don’t include historical works, because if we put them behind glass, it thwarts our mandate. We want people to sit with a friend, together at a table, going through each book, talking, pointing at things, flipping back. A book is an object. It has a size, scale, tactility — and that’s the only way to look at it.”

In addition to this public programming, 10x10 publishes their own books based on specific themes that coincide with some of their major reading rooms. Past titles include American Photobooks, Japanese Photobooks, and Contemporary Latin American Photobooks: 2000-2016. But when the group met up for their regular catch-up at a bar in New York to discuss what title to pursue next, they decided to shift from their past standard of geographical focus. “We get together about once every six weeks, just to have a drink and brainstorm. It was actually Michael who came up with the idea for this book. He said, ‘I think we need to do a book about women,’ and Olga and I immediately said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’ That was about two years ago, and then it all escalated.”

Consolidated histories of the photobook have existed for some time, with perhaps the most seminal of these — The Photobook: A History, vol. 1 by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger – first published in 2004 (volumes 2 and 3 were published in 2006 and 2014, respectively). When the editors of How We See began their research on the representation of photobooks by women, they turned to these anthologies to generate statistics. “We expected a low percentage of publications by women photographers showcased within historically focused ‘books on books’ photobook anthologies,” they write in their introductory text. “However, we were unprepared for how disproportionate their underrepresentation would be – only 10.5% of the total of books listed.”

This prompted the editors to look into other realms of the photobook publishing world, and the numbers were just as bleak. Titles by females on three major publishers’ websites only amounted to 16.2%. The 10x10 editors then turned the mirror on themselves, and discovered they had subconsciously fallen into this same pattern with their own projects. “We discovered that our past three reading rooms and ‘book on books’ photobook anthologies also failed to adequately represent women, with only 22.9% of the books we highlighted by women.”

Subverting the standards engrained in the history of photography seems like an impossible task to tackle with a single publication, and the editors knew it would be difficult to trace this legacy of absence on their own. After all, photobook cultures exist in variation all over the world, and women are underrepresented in all these regions. In order to cover as many bases as possible, the editors assembled a group of ten women photobook selectors from ten different geographic regions, who selected their top ten photobook picks for their given territory.

Photographer and visual artist Mariela Sancari focused on Latin America; Artist and Founder of Meta/Books Delphine Bedel and Collector and Founder of L’éditeur du Dimanche Frédérique Destribats focused on Western Europe; Associate Curator of the Contemporary Art Program of the Cappadox Festival Ilgin Deniz Akseloğlu focused on the Middle East; Independent Curator Iona Fergusson focused on South Asia and Australasia; Aperture Creative Director and Publisher of The Photobook Review Lesley A. Martin covered the United States; Head of Unseen Book Market Daria Tuminas covered Eastern Europe; Co-owner of nitesha Amanda Ling-Ning Lo focused on Taiwan and China; Historian Oluremi C. Onabanjo covered Africa; Founding Director of Photocaptionist Federica Chiocchetti focused on other aspects of Western Europe; and Session Press Publisher Miwa Susuda focused on Japan. The result is a selection and description of 100 photobooks by women from all over the world.

Spread from “How We See: Photobooks by Women,” pg. 12-13 © 10x10 Photobooks
Each selection is contextualized with a small essay by the given selector, who outlines their thought process behind formulating their list. As you leaf through the pages of selections, small descriptions of each work are accompanied by images of the cover and interior spreads, examining the materiality of each book. This focus on the book as an object is the perfect extension of 10x10’s mandate to approach publications as interactive entities rather than untouchable relics. As readers, we get a sense of what it must be like to hold the photobooks, whether they incorporate gate folds, accordion bindings or more classic structures.

As a prelude to this incredible range of selections, three essays provide perspectives on the troublesome erasure of women from the history of photobooks. “Partial Histories” by Kristen Lubben re-contextualizes Anna Atkins as the first photobook maker, and Isiuchi Miyako’s “Reflections on Photobooks” traces her own creative legacy as an important female photographer who emerged from Japan’s postwar scene of the 1960s. Finally, Valentina Abenavoli’s “Swaying Time on a Flatland” is a poetic essay on the personal process of discovering the importance of the photobook as a means of expression. In “Partial Histories,” Lubben writes, “One of the strengths of How We See is that each selector created her own governing rationale and criteria for selection, allowing for a range of approaches and producing results that are surprising and varied. In the end, this is the great contribution of the project: by shifting the focus, and creating a collective approach to constructing alternative histories, we can open up space for discovery.”

At the moment, all of the books featured in How We See have been curated into a classic 10x10 reading room, and will spend the next year touring to different cities all over the world. For the launch of this literary caravan, the editors decided to show the works at the New York Public Library in conjunction with the exhibition Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works — a lyrical nod to Atkins as the first ever photobook maker. As a public institution and tourist destination, the NYPL is not necessarily an art space, which feeds into 10x10’s mandate of knowledge dissemination. “We were in one of these beautiful period rooms in the main public library, and you have photography people coming through, but you also have tourists wandering in,” explains Lederman. “Some of them would walk in the door and immediately turn around and leave, but then you have tourists who walk in and think, ‘Wow, I had no idea that photography books existed, and I had no idea about the involvement of women in it.’ And they’d stay for hours. That’s when it’s the best — when it’s not just preaching to the converted. It’s touching this larger community that might not be aware of photography books.”

Of course, How We See is not a conclusive history of women makers. It’s a hair-pulling contradiction to claim that a concentrated selection of works can remedy over a century’s worth of habitual filtration. Rather, the editors hope the book can act as a model that prompts further fruitful discussion on the pressing topic, so that we might eventually reach a point where a distinction between ‘artists’ and ‘women artists’ is no longer necessary. “We want people to stop and think, ‘I’m putting together an exhibition, I’m doing an anthology, I’m creating a panel — but am I touching the different worlds of the photobook, the different sides of it? Am I including, or am I excluding? That’s all we ask. Question before you jump. Let’s make sure we’re being inclusive in this history. That’s what matters.”

https://www.photobooksbywomen.org/

Shortlisted for the 2019 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Jurors' Special Mention.
How We See: Photobooks by Women, 10×10 Photobooks’ latest project and publication, presents a global range of 21st-century photobooks by female photographers.

With historical records establishing 19th-century British photographer Anna Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843-1853) as the first photobook, it is not surprising that women have consistently contributed to the rich history of photobook making. 10×10 Photobooks has organized How We See—a hands-on reading room, “books on books” publication and series of public events—to explore the distinctive content, design and intellectual attributes in photobooks produced by women.

The comprehensive How We See publication—with images and texts for all the photobooks in the project—is an invaluable reference and resource. In addition to all one hundred books in the reading room, the publication includes one hundred historical books by women photographers, an annotated chronology, and several essays on the history and practice of photobooks by women.

Photographers with books in How We See include:

Laia Abril, Ying Ang, Olivia Arthur, Sophie Calle, Xiaoyi Chen, Zoe Croggon, Cristina de Middel, Laura El-Tantawy, Abigail Heyman, Hannah Höch, Dragana Jurišic, Kristina Jurotschkin, Pixy Liao, Susan Meiselas, Lucia Moholy, Zanele Muholi, Yurie Nagashima, Catherine Opie, Maya Rochat, Guadalupe Ruiz, Eva Saukane, Collier Schorr, Ketaki Sheth, Lieko Shiga, Dayanita Singh, Mitra Tabrizian, Carrie Mae Weems, among many others.

Selectors for the How We See Reading Room are:

Ilgin Deniz Akseloglu (Middle East)
Delphine Bedel & Frédérique Destribats (Western Europe)
Federica Chiocchetti (Western Europe)
Iona Fergusson (South Asia & Australasia)
Amanda Ling-Ning Lo (China & Taiwan)
Lesley A. Martin (United States)
Oluremi C. Onabanjo (Africa)
Mariela Sancari (Latin America)
Miwa Susuda (Japan)
Daria Tuminas (Eastern Europe)
Included in the reading room publication for How We See are ten lists of historical photobooks by women photographers from 1843 to 2010. These subjective lists (of ten books each) are provided by historians, librarians, curators and writers in the photography and photobook field. Historical selectors are: Sagrario Berti, Clara Bouveresse, Hinde Haest, Anne E. Havinga, Carole Naggar, Sayaka Takahashi, Barbara Tannenbaum, Jennifer Tobias, Stephanie H. Tung and the women on the 10×10 Photobooks team.

Photographers included within the historical lists are: Diane Arbus, Anna Atkins, Barbara Brandli, Margaret Bourke-White, Claude Cahun, Giesele Freund, Miyako Ishiuchi, Graciela Iturbide, Germaine Krull, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, Tina Modotti, Cindy Sherman, Hsin Wang, among others.

— Frances Benjamin Johnston, The Hampton Album, 1899–1900 [2019 reprint shown]
— Elizabeth B. Brownell, Dream Children, 1901
— Adelaide Hanscom, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 1905
— Mabel Eardley-Wilmot, The Light of Asia or the Great Renunciation, 1908
— Aënne Biermann, Aënne Biermann: 60 Fotos, 1930 [2019 reprint shown]
— Lotte Errell, Kleine Reise zu schwarzen Menschen, 1931
— Hannah Höch, Sammelalbum, 1933 [2004 facsimile shown]
— Doris Ulmann, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 1933
— Margaret Bourke-White, You Have Seen Their Faces, 1937
— Nell Dorr, In a Blue Moon, 1939
— Barbara Morgan, Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs, 1941
— Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson, African Journey, 1945
— Lee Miller, Wrens in Camera, 1945
— Thérèse Le Prat, Visages d’acteurs, 1950
— Lola Álvarez Bravo, Acapulco en el sueno, 1951
— Anna Riwkin-Brick, Elle Kari, 1951
— Henriette Grindat, Lausanne, 1952
— Inge Morath, Guerre à la tristesse, 1955
— Emmy Andriesse, Beeldroman, 1956
— Lori Sammartino, La Domenica degli Italiani, 1961 [2009 reprint shown]
— Eiko Yamazawa, Far and Near, 1962
— Eva Fuková, Eva Fuková, 1963
— Helen Levitt, A Way of Seeing, 1965
— Emila Medková, Emila Medková, 1965
— Nell Dorr, Of Night and Day, 1968
— Rosemarie Clausen, Samuel Beckett inszeniert das “Endspiel”, 1969
— Imogen Cunningham, Imogen Cunningham: Photographs, 1970
— Diane Arbus, Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph, 1972 [2022 reprint shown]
— Louise E. Jefferson, The Decorative Arts of Africa, 1973
— Tamiko Nishimura, Shikishima, 1973
— Elsa Dorfman, Elsa’s Housebook: A Woman’s Photojournal, 1974
— Abigail Heyman, Growing up female: a personal photojournal, 1974
— Éva Besnyö, “Meid, wat ben ik bewust geworden” — Vijf jaar Dolle mina, 1975
— Jutka Rona, Wolvenstraat 1974: Tussen 12 en 2 / between 12 and 2, 1975
— Eve Arnold, The Unretouched Woman, 1976
— Erica Lennard, Les femmes, les soeurs, 1976
— Susan Meiselas, Carnival Strippers, 1976 [2021 revisited edition shown]
— Michiko Matsumoto, Nobiyakana onna tachi / Women Come Alive, 1978
— Marcia Resnick, Re-visions, 1979 [2019 facsimile shown]
— JEB (Joan E. Biren), Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, 1979 [2021 reprint shown]
— Lisette Model, Lisette Model: An Aperture Monograph, 1979
— Thea Segall, Los Ninos de Aqui, 1979
— Martha Wilson, Autobiography, 1979
— Marianne Wex, ‘Let’s Take Back Our Space’: “Female” and “Male” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures, 1979
— Monika von Boch, Land Sehen, 1981
— Ruth Orkin, A Photo Journal, 1981
— Jeanne Moutoussamy- Ashe, Daufuski Island: A Photographic Essay, 1982
— Lesley Lawson, Working Women: A Portrait of South Africa’s Women Workers, 1985
— Hsin Wang, Lanyu zaijian. Wang hsin sheying ji, 1985
— Ruth Bernhard, The Eternal Body: A Collection of Fifty Nudes, 1986
— Jo Spence, Putting Myself in the Picture: A Political, Personal and Photographic Autobiography, 1986
— Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, 1986 [2012 reissue shown]
— Dayanita Singh, Zakir Hussain: A Photo Essay, 1986–1987 [2019 maquette shown]
— Mary Ellen Mark, Streetwise, 1988 [2015 Tiny: Streetwise Revisited shown]
— Angèle Etoundi Essamba, Passion, 1989
— Graciela Iturbide, Juchitán de las Mujeres, 1989
— Martine Barrat, Die Boxer, 1991 [1993 English edition Do or Die shown]
— Lorna Simpson, Lorna Simpson: Untitled 54, 1992
— Sophie Calle, Des histoires vraies, 1994
— Paz Errázuriz, El infarto del alma, 1994 [2017 reprint shown]
— Carrie Mae Weems, In these Islands: South Carolina–Georgia, 1995
— Tina Barney, Theater of Manners, 1997
— Shirin Neshat, Women of Allah, 1997
— Hiromix, Hiromix, 1998
— Yurie Nagashima, Kazoku, 1998
— Barbara Kruger, show less