Marilyn Nance: Last Day in Lagos
From January 15 to February 12, 1977, more than 15,000 artists, intellectuals and performers from 55 nations worldwide gathered in Lagos, Nigeria, for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, also known as FESTAC’77. While serving as the photographer for the US contingent of the North American delegation, Brooklyn-based photographer Marilyn Nance made more than 1,500 images throughout the course of the festival—one of the most comprehensive photographic accounts of FESTAC’77. Drawing from Nance’s extensive archive, most of which has never before been published, Last Day in Lagos chronicles the exuberant intensity and sociopolitical significance of this extraordinary event.
Published: October 2022 | CARA & Fourthwall Books
Role: Editor & Contributor
Ming Smith: Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere
Ming Smith: Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere spotlights a single photograph by Ming Smith, celebrating her synesthetic range and acuity of vision. The latest volume in MoMA’s One on One series, this book invites readers to perceive the subtle yet significant contributions of this Black woman photographer to the history of the medium.
Published: November 2022 | MoMA
Role: Author
Lucid Knowledge: The Currency of the Photographic Image
Using the theme of currency to invite reflection on the contemporary power of the photograph to relay meaning across distance, this volume explores the value of photography in the 21st century—its relationship to value-making, canon-making, circulation and knowledge production. At a time when the production, distribution and consumption of photographic images has become ubiquitous, the digital image has become the exchange currency on social platforms. This critical reader gathers international perspectives reflecting on how photography shapes today’s narratives and our perception and experience of the world.
Published: 2022 | Hatje Cantz
Role: Editor & Contributor
Autoportrait: Samuel Fosso
Autoportrait is the first comprehensive survey of the multifaceted oeuvre of photographer Samuel Fosso (born 1962). This landmark monograph demonstrates Fosso’s unique departure from the traditions of West African studio photography, established in the 1950s and ’60s by modern masters Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé. By charting his conceptual practice of self-portraiture, and sustained engagement with notions of sexuality, gender and self-representation, this book reveals an unprecedented photographic project.
Published: 2020 | Steidl & The Walther Collection
Role: Contributor
How We See: Photobooks By Women
A comprehensive 'books on books' anthology, How We See: Photobooks By Women explores the distinctive content, design and intellectual attributes in photobooks produced by women. Featuring 100 publications made throughout the 20th and 21 centuries, selected and introduced by 10 selectors across the globe, How We See additionally includes 100 historical books by women photographers, an annotated chronology, author and visual indexes, and essays by photographer Ishiuchi Miyako; Magnum Foundation Executive Director, Kristen Lubben and an interview with Valentina Abenavoli of Akina Books.
Published: 2018 | 10x10 Photobooks
Role: Selector
Life and Dreams
Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Media Art is the first extensive catalogue of works by Chinese artists represented in The Walther Collection. Showing visually inventive and emotionally compelling artworks by 44 groundbreaking artists, Life and Dreams demonstrates the remarkable speed with which photography and media art have occupied important positions within the field of experimental Chinese art since the early 1990s, and the widespread adoption of these media and forms by successive generations of artists.
Published: 2018 | Steidl & The Walther Collection
Role: Managing Editor
Recent Histories
Providing a point of entry to engage critically with current practices and the frameworks of contemporary African photography and video art, Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography and Video Art unites the perspectives of 14 contemporary artists across Africa and the African Diaspora, who investigate social identity, questions of belonging, and an array of sociopolitical concerns.
Published: 2017 | Steidl & The Walther Collection
Role: Editor & Contributor
Structures of Identity
Photographic portraits are more than mementoes of friends and family, they are markers of social identity. Structures of Identity examines how photographers, across a range of cultures and historical periods, have used portraiture to affirm or challenge social stereotypes constructed around notions of race, gender, class, and nationality. Reflecting on the ways that portrait photography has been deployed, Structures of Identity visualizes the political and cultural factors that shape individual and collective subjectivities, with a particular focus on the relation between self-representation and social identity.
Published: 2017 | Steidl & The Walther Collection
Role: Editor & Contributor
The Order of Things
The Order of Things: Photography from The Walther Collection focuses on serial portraiture and landscape photography, time-based performance, and vernacular imagery from the 1880s to the present, bringing together a dynamic selection of works by artists from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Setting the pioneers of the German New Objectivity movement in dialogue with contemporary artists working with grids or essays, as well as nineteenth-century mug shots and scientific studies, this catalogue interrogates and reveals a set of formal similarities and methods, as photographers turn from pictorial representation toward systems of knowledge.
Published: 2015 | Steidl & The Walther Collection
Role: Editorial Assistant