POST x Photoworks Photobook Club with Diane Smyth

For our next POST x Photoworks Photobook Club, Diane Smyth will lead a session on the latest Photoworks Annual, Cosmophotographies.

Cosmophotographies takes Yuk Hui’s conception of cosmotechnics, and applies it to photography. Hui argues that technology is never neutral, embodying the values, assumptions and ways of knowing which shaped it – while simultaneously shaping them. Cosmophotographies asks what ideology is embedded in the camera and the images it produces; in the face of impending environmental and climate breakdown, can we urgently envisage something else?

Cosmophotographies takes Yuk Hui’s conception of cosmotechnics, and applies it to photography. Hui argues that technology is never neutral, embodying the values, assumptions and ways of knowing which shaped it – while simultaneously shaping them. Cosmophotographies asks what ideology is embedded in the camera and the images it produces; in the face of impending environmental and climate breakdown, can we urgently envisage something else?

Annual 33, Cosmophotographies, is edited by Diane Smyth and designed by Jane & Jeremy. It features perforated pages, allowing readers to curate and display the work beyond the traditional book format (below - exhibited at Whistleblower Gallery in Hove).

Artists included in the Annual: Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, Crystal Bennes, Holly Birtles, Matt Black, The Pariacaca Collective (Fernando Criollo and Prin Rodriguez), Shuyan Liang (Fire), Tsz Wai Pun and Coşkun Güçlü, Nicolás Janowski, Siddharth Khajuria, Wu MeiChi, Daniele Cimaglia and Giuseppe Odore, Ayobami Ogungbe, Marton Perlaki, Sarker Protick, Maya Rochat, Eugénie Shinkle, Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo, Ruby Wallis and Feiyi Wen. Plus texts by Louise Fedotov-Clements, Yining He, Diane Smyth, Beatrice Zaidenberg, Taous Dahmani and Omar Kholei.

Diane Smyth is Editor of the British Journal of Photography and the Photoworks Annual. She also teaches History and Theory of Photography at the London College of Communications, University of the Arts London, and has given talks and workshops at institutions such as London School of Economics and King’s College London. Diane has written about photography for publications such as The Guardian, FT Weekend Magazine, Aperture, FOAM, Trigger, Apollo and The Art Newspaper, and contributed essays to many photography catalogues and monographs. She originally studied for a BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Birmingham, graduating with a First and the Tibbatt’s Memorial Prize. She also holds an MA in Modern Literatures in English from Birkbeck College, University of London, taken while working full time.

As usual, this photobook club session is intended to be welcoming and interactive with a small cohort of photobook lovers!

POST Members and Photoworks Friends may join this group for free but must book a place.