Matt Johnston, Photobooks &, 2021

Photobooks & presents and interrogates key themes of the contemporary photobook — from the medium’s post-digital and post-photographic situation, to the purposes of publishing, issues of accessibility and the act of reading. Informed by extensive research, interviews with key individuals from the photobook ecology and his experience with The Photobook Club project, Johnston examines current trends and practices, emphasising connections (made and missed) between makers and readers. Ultimately, this book proposes a critical framework for considering our uses and encounters with the photobook, calling for a recalibration of a maker-centric discourse to address the communicative potential of the medium: aligning making, with making public.

Matt Johnston is a visual practitioner, educator and researcher currently based in the School of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University, where he is an Assistant Professor in photography. For the last decade, his research and visual practice has been concerned with the post-millennium situation of the contemporary photobook, how the medium has become central to a small but dedicated ecology, and how it may become better equipped to engage new readerships.