The projects arrive as digital folders, ordered alphabetically by first name. I duplicate the folders and replace the names with numbers. Then I let them sit for a day.

Each folder includes a personal statement, a selection of photographs, and a biography. I ignore the statements and biographies until I’ve looked at each image selection several times. I want to see which images are capable to hold their own and make me curious.

Opening these files is like opening somebody’s closet. Each one has its own logic, its own array of tone, form, and style – its own bearing. I look long and slowly; I take notes, such as “is the process the picture?”. When I’m finished looking, I write a few numbers on a small piece of paper. I fold it and put it aside.

I read the statements twice. I look for clarity and concision, for words that state and don’t interpret, that neither embellish nor obscure the practice and project they describe. I write a few numbers down on another piece of paper. After I look at the images and statements together, I compare the two sets of numbers. The numbers I find on both pieces of paper are the projects you see here.

The four bodies of work that I selected are different in subject and scope, procedure and aesthetic. What connects them is a similar understanding of and approach to process: One in which how these photographers make their photographs is so closely tied to their subjects, and to why they make them, that I don’t immediately think about the photographic processes but images. They share an intimacy, a longing for reciprocity, a search. The works speak through delicacy and tenderness, without being sentimental. They cast light on pertinent questions without fully revealing their answers.

Sabrina Mandanici, August, 2020.

Sabrina Mandanici is an art critic and writer based in the US and Germany. She is a regular contributor to Collector Daily. Other publications include Artforum.com, Aperture, and the Brooklyn Rail, as well exhibition catalogues.