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Live talk show in which photographer and photo-book aficionado Rob Hornstra goes on stage with makers of photo books: photographers, designers and publisher are interrogated about their latest projects. Acclaimed international makers talk about the stories they try to tell and the choices they make when translating them into a photo book. Expect compelling content with the occasional critical note.
In this 17th edition of the FOTODOK Book Club we are going to look at books that question (or challenge) the phenomenon of power. Throughout our history power has both been responsible for war, oppression and worldwide inequality. At the same time it also enabled social movements opportunities and human rights for billions. Power is a phenomenon that creates restraints in our society, yet is responsible for the structures that bind us together. Join Rob Hornstra in a conversation with four photographers that explore different kinds of power and their role as image makers in influencing them.
Laia Abril (SP) is no stranger to the FOTODOK Book Club. She was our guest on the very first edition, back in 2015. This time she’ll be joining us to talk about her compelling book On Abortion, which is the first part of a larger body of work called A History of Misogyny. In this body of work she aims to visualise the comparison between the present and the past. Abril wants us to realise that while in large parts of the world woman rights have been embedded in laws, that doesn’t mean the underlying issues have disappeared from our societies. On Abortion won the 2017 Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation’s Photobook of the Year Award.
The Parallel State by Guy Martin (UK) is a story about power, authoritarianism, and the theatrics of politics. Martin questions in The Parallel State the notion of ‘truth’ in a period dominated by doubt and deception. The series covers the period between the protests in Gezi Park in 2013 until the aftermath of the failed military coup in 2016. In this period President Tayyip Erdogan emerges as an authoritarian leader and Turkey slips into a state of growing lack of freedom. Martin mixes his photos of protests, daily life, soap opera sets and archive material into a new story. The difference between fact and fiction is hard to identify: are we looking at a soap episode? Is this news? It’s an attempt to understand contemporary Turkey in all its complexity.
The Parallel State is part of FOTODOK’s current exhibition Who’s in Control?
Jonas Bendiksen (NO) will be talking about The Last Testament, for which he traveled all over the world to meet and photograph 7 men that believe they are the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Meaning that they literally believe they embody Jesus Christ, who is prophesied to return back to Earth in both Christianity and Islam. Bendiksen set out not only to meet these 7 men, but also their disciples and spent lang periods of time with them. During his stays Bendiksen tried to take on the role as a photographic apostel. “When I was with them I wanted to live 100 percent in their world with their disciples, and ask, ‘What does it look like if that actually is the Messiah?’ If this is the Messiah, then they are here to bring about the end-times and the judgement of man and brings God’s kingdom down to earth as promised.” Bendiksen is mainly interested in the question why the Bible story of a returning Messiah has remained so potent in current day society.
Start Date
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Cloud 9
