Book Talk

Conversations about new books by FOTOHOF>EDITION

The long-term photographic project (2016−2022) is the result of the ongoing recording of a feeling: the search for the personal traces of time. The series deals with growing up and rediscovering the place you left behind. It attempts to decipher what it means to feel connected and at the same time increasingly distanced from the formative period of growing up. The personal bond is woven from a collection of memories and hopes, yet the visual surface remains seemingly unchanged. »ROYGBIV« explores this ambivalent connection to the landscapes and personalities that have become part of the lived reality in the Salzburg region. Thereby photography is used to describe the imagined world of memory and to record how this idea changes with each visit. The title is an acronym for the colors of the rainbow, an optical phenomenon that has repeatedly appeared in the landscapes over the many summers. The colors of the arc depend on the position of the viewer. The composition changes with every step.
Vincent Forstenlechner in conversation with Valentin Backhaus.

Michael Jochum’s photography comes from an inner need, a feeling that leads him to search for an image: one that is always followed by the next in an ongoing process. His subject is photography itself. He works with analog film, inspired by Fernando Pessoa’s idea: »The highest truth lies in fiction.« His images and sequences create connections that go beyond what is shown. Portraits, objects, and landscapes tell stories like dreams, where the unseen becomes more important than what is visible. »Gemischter Satz« captures his artistic approach. The name comes from a type of wine made by mixing different grapes, harvested and fermented together. Here, this process is a metaphor for the book: black-and-white photos from various series are newly combined. An invisible thread connects the images without following a timeline, making Jochum’s visual style feel more like poetry than prose. The book also includes a literary text by Anna Weidenholzer.
Michael Jochum in conversation with Mateusz Dworczyk.

»Strömungen in Bewegung« [Currents in Motion] addresses the experiences and activities of non-governmental women’s and lesbian groups in the GDR in the 1980s and 1990s, both in terms of content and aesthetics. The image and text materials used in the publication come from the »GrauZone« collection of the Archive of the GDR Opposition and the Spinnboden Lesbian Archive and were edited and alienated by Schröder. The artist not only deals with historical gaps, but also sheds light on the significance of archives as powerful institutions. By placing strategies of self-empowerment and feminist resistance practices in relation to the present, she enables plural and alternative perspectives on GDR history.
Luise Schröder in conversation with Birgit Sattlecker.

The work of the Austrian-British exile photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (1908–1973) is presented in a new and extensive retrospective in the photo book »A steady eye in turbulent times«. Her life is traced in detail in the authors’ texts. As a central protagonist of social documentary photography between 1930 and 1955, Edith Tudor-Hart drew attention to social grievances and dealt with topics such as poverty, integration and women’s rights and portrayed the living conditions of the working class. Her work is also characterized by avant-garde elements of »New Vision« and made an important contribution to the depiction of progressive educational methods, modernist architecture and modern dance.
Katrin Froschauer, graphic designer of the book, in conversation with Peter Schreiner.