The Photographic Memory Workshop at Yale University and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library present a hands-on workshop, The Contemporary Photobook to be held at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Friday, January 17th from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.
The workshop will begin at 9:00 am with a panel discussion moderated by Jae Rossman, Assistant Director for Special Collections, Haas Family Arts Library. The panelists - Lauren Henkin, independent photographer and founder of Vela Noche Press; Lisa Kereszi, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Yale School of Art; and Larissa Leclair, photography writer and founding curator of the Indie Photobook Library – will explore recent trends in the creation, design, and distribution of photographic books.
After a coffee break on the Beinecke mezzanine, Larissa Leclair will guide participants at the workshop in a hands-on exploration of selected titles from the Yale University Library’s collection of photobooks.
After lunch, the workshop will conclude with a presentation by Nell Irvin Painter, the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University, who in her retirement earned an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Dr. Painter will speak about her creative re-use of photographs in her paintings and artists books, especially in her consideration of the Odalisque
Participation at the workshop is open to the general public at no charge, but will be limited to 40 people. Those interested in attending should email George.miles@yale.edu. Please use the subject Beinecke Photobook Workshop.
There are a limited number of spots available for the workshop so those interested in attending are strongly recommended to RSVP early to guarantee a spot. This invitation is open to all graduate students, faculty, and staff regardless of their institutional affiliation.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Laura Wexler
Professor of American Studies & Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Director of the Photographic Memory Workshop, Yale University
George Miles
William Robertson Coe Curator, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Participant Bios:
Lauren Henkin graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis. She observes, “My primary subject is the American landscape. I’m interested in photographing the tension between preservation and extinction.” A photographer, educator, writer, and publisher, Henkin has written on photography and the book arts for PDN, Black+White Magazine, Urbanautica, Landscape Stories, Parenthesis and The Washington Post. Henkin founded Vela Noche Press in 2010; her photographs are found in many private collections as well as well as the Cleveland Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Smith College Museum of Art, Yale University, and Dartmouth College.
Lisa Kereszi graduated from Bard College in 1995. After working as an assistant to Nan Goldin, she received an MFA in photography from Yale in 2000. Kereszi has published four, and her photographs have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nest, New York, Harper’s, W, GQ, Black Book, Jane, Nylon, zingmagazine, Flaunt, and wallpaper*. Her work is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Altoids Curiously Strong Collection of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Norton Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery.
Larissa Leclair holds a BFA in Photography and a BA in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis as well as a Master of Arts from Yale University. As an independent critic and collector of photography, she founded the Indie Photobook Library, www.indiephotobooklibrary.org, in 2010. She has written for TIME Lightbox, PDN, Voices of Photography, GUP Magazine, and the Photo-eye Booklist, among others. Leclair curated the Yale University exhibition of David Apter’s photographs, Today’s Past: Images of Africa from 1952 to 1960. Most recently, she has curated the traveling exhibition A Survey of Documentary Styles in early 21st century Photobooks that has shown in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and New York. This year Leclair is a Young Voices Fellow for The Next Conversation at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona.
Nell Irvin Painter earned a doctorate in history from Harvard University. A former president of the Organization of American Historians and of the Southern Historical Association, she has received numerous awards for her many books including Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after the Civil War (1976); Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol (1996); and The History of White People (2010). In May 2011, following her retirement from teaching at Princeton University, Dr. Painter completed an MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. As a painter she frequently draws upon and reimagines images from historical photographs.