Foreword by Carles Guerra, Marta Gili. Text by Ariella Azoulay, Eduardo Cadava, Carles Guerra, Marianne Hirsch, Kristen Lubben, Isin Onol, Pia Viewing.
“For me, the essence of documentary photography has always been to do with evidence.” —Susan Meiselas
A member of Magnum Photos since 1976, Susan Meiselas became known for her work in the conflict zones of Central America in the 1970s and '80s and for the strength of her color photography. Covering many subjects and countries, from war to human-rights issues and from cultural identity to the sex industry, Meiselas uses photography, film, video and sometimes archive material, as she relentlessly explores and develops narratives integrating the participation of her subjects in her works. Meiselas constantly questions the photographic process and her role as witness.
Presenting a selection of works from the 1970s through the present day, Susan Meiselas: Mediations retraces her trajectory from the 1970s to the present. Published to accompany a major traveling retrospective of the photographer’s work, it features an illustrious list of contributors that includes Ariella Azoulay, Eduardo Cadava and Kristin Lubben, among others.
Susan Meiselas (born 1948) studied at Sarah Lawrence College and Harvard University, taking up photography in the early 1970s. She is credited with being one of the first to work with color in documentary photography, a controversial decision when she was shooting the conflict in Nicaragua in the late 1970s. Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Susan Meiselas: Mediations.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Juxtapoz
Using photography, film, video, and archive material, Meiselas presents a comprehensive narrative of the subjects in her work, constantly raising questions about the role of the photographer as a witness and the subject as a participant.
New York Magazine
Morgan Sykes
if you can’t make it to see her genre-defining photographs in person, pick up the book and look behind the scenes of one of America’s photographic living legends.”
Dazed
Clara Hernanz
Meiselas remains an inspiration for any self-conscious photographer. At the centre of her work is a perpetual discussion around the purpose and relevance of photography, the use and distribution of images and their effects on history and memory.
Huck
Sara Rosen
a meditation on the threads that weave the complex tapestry of Meiselas’ career.
Mother Jones
Mark Murrmann
Exceptional, giving a taste of the breadth of her work.
Hyperallergic
Emily Wilson
Mediations shows the range of Meiselas’s subjects, from carnival strippers, girls in her Little Italy neighborhood in New York (the “Prince Street Girls”), a refuge for women in England, and the aftermath of the Kurdistan genocide in 1991.
PDN's Notable Photo Books of 2018
Mediations brings together a selection of series from the 1970s to the present, calling attention to Meiselas’s photographic approach and her lifelong commitment to engage in a “cycle of return” with her subjects, going back to the communities she has photographed and sharing the work with them.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Susan Meiselas: Mediations is published to accompany the major traveling retrospective currently on view at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, en route to SFMOMA. Pictured here are a variety of archival materials from Meiselas' seminal 1972-75 Carnival Strippers project, which essayist Kristen Lubben credits with posing questions like, "How do women forge autonomy and self-determination? Where are women pushing at the margins of acceptability? This line of inquiry can be traced throughout the long and varied trajectory of Meiselas' work, as well as through her own narrative as a female photographer transgressing in male-dominated spaces." continue to blog
This year's Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize has been awarded to Susan Meiselas, whose socially-driven work has influenced decades of documentary photographers. In specific, the prize was awarded for Meiselas' 2018 traveling retrospective, Mediations, which originated at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and concluded at SFMOMA. Featured here are three spreads from the appropriately restrained and scholarly exhibition catalog, published by Damiani. In it, Meiselas acknowledges the importance of the role of the image as a means of ongoing recognition, commenting on "those photographs that provide people with a sense of who they have been, in order perhaps to make sense of who they are and who they will be." She continues, "This experience has reaffirmed for me the value and the importance of documentary photography, and at the same time it has made me even more aware of how complex the act of reading meaning from photographs can be." continue to blog
"Pebbles at Manhattan Beach" (from the series Prince Street Girls, 1975-1990) is reproduced from Susan Meiselas: Mediations, published by Damiani to accompany exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and SFMOMA. Meiselas photographed her young Soho neighbors "until the girls turned into women, got married and moved away to Staten Island or New Jersey," Kristen Lubben writes. "In those pictures… Meiselas had the time to sit and observe the intimate gestural language between women, and mine it for meaning. She was observing girls becoming women and women striving for self-determination, while also in her own process of transforming into a different kind of photographer and woman." continue to blog
Wednesday, May 23 from 7-9 PM, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas will appear in conversation with visual artist Ann Hamilton, LIVE from the NYPL in the Wachenheim Trustees Room at the main branch of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street & 5th Avenue. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 7 x 9.5 in. / 184 pgs / illustrated throughout. LIST PRICE: U.S. $35.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $47.5 ISBN: 9788862085694 PUBLISHER: Damiani AVAILABLE: 3/27/2018 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Damiani. Foreword by Carles Guerra, Marta Gili. Text by Ariella Azoulay, Eduardo Cadava, Carles Guerra, Marianne Hirsch, Kristen Lubben, Isin Onol, Pia Viewing.
“For me, the essence of documentary photography has always been to do with evidence.” —Susan Meiselas
A member of Magnum Photos since 1976, Susan Meiselas became known for her work in the conflict zones of Central America in the 1970s and '80s and for the strength of her color photography. Covering many subjects and countries, from war to human-rights issues and from cultural identity to the sex industry, Meiselas uses photography, film, video and sometimes archive material, as she relentlessly explores and develops narratives integrating the participation of her subjects in her works. Meiselas constantly questions the photographic process and her role as witness.
Presenting a selection of works from the 1970s through the present day, Susan Meiselas: Mediations retraces her trajectory from the 1970s to the present. Published to accompany a major traveling retrospective of the photographer’s work, it features an illustrious list of contributors that includes Ariella Azoulay, Eduardo Cadava and Kristin Lubben, among others.
Susan Meiselas (born 1948) studied at Sarah Lawrence College and Harvard University, taking up photography in the early 1970s. She is credited with being one of the first to work with color in documentary photography, a controversial decision when she was shooting the conflict in Nicaragua in the late 1970s. Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then.
