shashasha

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, “book on books” publication and series of public events—to explore the distinctive content, design and intellectual attributes in photobooks produced by women. In addition to all the books in the reading room, the publication includes one hundred 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. The project’s reading room selection has been formed by ten female selectors - either in teams or individually - from around the world. The project’s selectors are specialists in the photobook field, and have made selections that focus on photobooks published in the 21st-century from their respective regions.

Selectors for the How We See Reading Room are:
Ilgin Deniz Akseloğlu (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.