“Books can reach a far wider audience than most exhibitions, and may offer a valuable means of bringing together a much larger number of photographs than what is often feasible within the limits of a gallery space”(Miles, 2010)
When I decided to publish Darling as a book, I’d previously had my heart set on a pop-up exhibition at a busy location in London. The more I considered who the work might appeal to or who the work is for, the more I realised I would rather publish the project initially as a book.
My thoughts on this are as follows:
- Only a short amount of time to come and view the work; I would have struggled to independently maintain an exhibition space for more than a weekend, and it felt unlikely that I would be able to be given an exhibition in a gallery space at this point in my career.
- The number of people who might come to see the exhibition wouldn’t have justified the cost of hiring the space and making prints. I have not exhibited in the UK before and my last show in Toronto was in 2017. It would be unrealistic to expect anyone to attend the exhibition without having heard of me. In addition, the pandemic would have potentially derailed an exhibition in London regardless.
- There amount of wall space at a small room for hire would not have benefited my project in its current state. I have been working with grouping numerous photographs to make one image for the duration of the MA course and it could have been very challenging to present Darling with it’s full context when limited to what I can put on the walls.
- The work itself is very personal and carefully constructed. There are both my partner’s and my own identity in the work, it has been arranged and displayed in a very specific way to tell a story. Controlling the narrative of the work for an audience makes sense, so being able to present a book with a specific arrangement means that the audience is more likely to read the work as intended instead of being given the independence to make their own way through a gallery.
- As someone interested in discovering new artists I predominantly view new work (in it’s physical form) in bookshops as opposed to gallery walls. I find myself frequenting gallery bookshops more that the galleries when there’s nothing exhibiting that interests me. I also discover a lot of artists online, through popular sites like Lens Cultre, BJP, Phrooom, the list is endless. Submitting work to those sites would be beneficial in that any sites that do want to feature my work would also provide a link to my website, my work and how they might buy it.
Some of my favourite experiences with photography have been sitting at home pouring over the images in photobooks either bought online or at galleries/bookshops, this has led to me seeking out exhibitions and taking greater value in experiencing the work in a gallery setting. I would like for my audience to experience this with my work if possible.
Parr in Miles, Melissa Miles (2010) The Drive to Archive: Conceptual Documentary Photobook Design, photographies, 3:1, 49-68, DOI: 10.1080/17540760903561108
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