Lady Readers
Sara Knelman
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Lady Readers, at Peckham 24, London, May 2024.
‘Though I’ve gathered them together, these images don’t belong to me. They’ve been let loose in the world, unbound from the conditions of their production, and from the people and places that made them. Collecting them is a way of bringing an attentiveness to this narrow photographic theme, and in turn to the symbolic power it might hold. What might these images convey about women as readers (or as writers)—as imaginers of the world? In her essay about reading, “How Should One Read a Book?”, Virginia Woolf describes the special space of reading: “Everywhere else may be bound by laws and conventions,” she writes, but “there we have none.” Even when we know how an image may have been used, we can’t know what the readers within them are thinking: Is their attention on the book or letter in hand? What effect are words and ideas having on their perspectives? Or are their minds instead wandering to other thoughts?’ (Excerpt from essay by Sara Knelman)
The book is designed so that by turning the pages and opening the gatefolds the reader can view the front and back of each of the photographic objects. There are three different colour spines to choose from.
Essay by Sara Knelman
Designed by Daniel Alexander
Photographs from the collection of Sara Knelman
Published by Ottoby Press, May 2024
ISBN 978-1-9163852-9-0
Edition of 450
Lady Readers
Sara Knelman
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Lady Readers, at Peckham 24, London, May 2024.
‘Though I’ve gathered them together, these images don’t belong to me. They’ve been let loose in the world, unbound from the conditions of their production, and from the people and places that made them. Collecting them is a way of bringing an attentiveness to this narrow photographic theme, and in turn to the symbolic power it might hold. What might these images convey about women as readers (or as writers)—as imaginers of the world? In her essay about reading, “How Should One Read a Book?”, Virginia Woolf describes the special space of reading: “Everywhere else may be bound by laws and conventions,” she writes, but “there we have none.” Even when we know how an image may have been used, we can’t know what the readers within them are thinking: Is their attention on the book or letter in hand? What effect are words and ideas having on their perspectives? Or are their minds instead wandering to other thoughts?’ (Excerpt from essay by Sara Knelman)
The book is designed so that by turning the pages and opening the gatefolds the reader can view the front and back of each of the photographic objects. There are three different colour spines to choose from.
Essay by Sara Knelman
Designed by Daniel Alexander
Photographs from the collection of Sara Knelman
Published by Ottoby Press, May 2024
ISBN 978-1-9163852-9-0
Edition of 450
With Monochrome Eyes was published to coincide with the exhibition of the same name, curated by Tom Lovelace in the Borough Road Gallery in February 2020.
‘With Monochrome Eyes presents the work of sixteen lens-based artists, bringing a focus onto the use of greyscale within contemporary photographic practice. Each artist has contributed one black and white work and one colour work, connected through ideas, negotiations and depictions of the body. In the exhibition these works were displayed in two separated but connected spaces in a gallery bisected by a slatted wall. In the book the works are printed on different paperstocks.’ Tom Lovelace
Featured Artists: Eleonora Agostini, Elena Helfrecht, Mahtab Hussain, Ben Jeffery, Äsa Johannesson, Kalpesh Lathigra, Ryan L.Moule, Martin Parr, Giovanna Petrocchi, Silvia Rosi, Martin Seeds, Senta Simond, Deo Suveera, Esther Teichmann, Paloma Tendero, Simon Terrill.
First Published by Ottoby Press, London, 2020,
Art direction and book design: Daniel Alexander
Edition of 100
ISBN: 978-1-9163852-0-7