In her new series of photo books, a city-based visual artist uses images from the print media to comment on contemporary issues
It was a photo book editing workshop in Hyderabad which she attended in February that sparked Kaamna Patel’s interest in the concept of handcrafted, small-edition books where visuals are key. In the months that followed, the Mumbai-based visual artist put her learning to use through an interesting exercise she took up.
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“For four months, I went through six newspapers every day to collate images that appear [in articles and advertisements] to comment on a number of topics,” says Patel about her project, which started as an Instagram series and evolved into a series of photo books titled In the News. The first volume of the series, Alpha Males and Women Power, which itself is a newspaper headline, was released last Saturday. It makes use of print media images to comment on prevalent patriarchies and pre-determined gender roles. The book is bound in a Japanese four-hole binding style, stitched by Patel, and has been published under her publishing platform JOJO, which will be dedicated to photo books.
Consisting of over 40 images, Alpha Males... presents an interesting juxtaposition of images, where Patel places two images on a spread. The one which shows a woman with folded hands (top), for instance, is her take on power dynamics, and how the husband is often a high and mighty figure. “All images have certain symbols in them. What do they say in the context they are originally in and what do they convey when taken out of that context?” she explains.
The spread where a silent woman’s picture is placed next to women who are part of a protest (below) is what Patel says is a call to action highlighting what women can be, though she prefers to leave the interpretation to the viewer.
Among other projects that could lend themselves to photo books are reproductions of images, Patel took on her journey from Paris to Istanbul, as seen through the cracked screen of her phone. She has also been documenting her nonagenarian grandparents’ relationship, which earned her the Castle Dummy Book award in Germany.
Email: editionsjojo@gmail.com
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