Thursday, September 11, 2025
Circulation and distribution of Photobooks
Luis Weinstein
Thursday, September 11th, 11:30AM–12:15PM
Luis Weinstein is a photographer, editor, lecturer and curator from Santiago de Chile. He has been member of the board of the International Festival of Photography at Valparaíso until 2015. He is the author of more than ten photobook and has founded the South American photo magazine Sueño de la Razón. Through Fundación SudFotografica, a nonprofit he currently chairs, he collaborates in the research of the Chilean photobook.
Photobook design
Akiko Wakabayashi with Letra Muerta
Thursday, September 11th, 1–1:45PM
Design is crucial to our experience of photobooks. From the materiality of the printed page to the structuring of images and integration of text, each designer brings their own sensibility to the process. Amsterdam-based book designer Akiko Wakabayashi and Brooklyn-based Letra Muerta present their projects and approaches to the photobook, as well as their collaboration with artists to provide context for their photographs.
Akiko Wakabayashi is from Nagano, Japan, works and lives in Tilburg, the Netherlands. She moved to Amsterdam (via London) to study graphic design, then worked at a design office before starting own practice. Akiko works project-based with individuals, couples, teams, groups of people, organizations etc., mainly in the field of book design.
akikowaka.com
Letra Muerta is:
Faride Mereb is an award-winning Venezuelan art director, book designer, and researcher living and working in New York City. She has won numerous awards, including the 2024 Grand Prix for best book design in the Latin American Design Awards, and best design studio (Venezuela). In 2022, she won the 10X10 Research Grant on Photobooks by Women, supporting her formative research on Venezuela’s first known woman graphic designer, Karmele Leizaola (1929–2021). Mereb was a visiting scholar at Columbia (2021–2022) and a guest professor at Yale (Fall 2024). She is a member of the Bibliographical Society of America and the American Printing History Association.
faridemereb.com
Oriana Nuzzi is a designer who was born in Maracaibo and currently lives and works in New York City. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in design, graduating with honors from LUZ (2019). In addition to taking courses on photography and visual arts, she participated in several group exhibitions, such as Cuerpo en Cuestión (with Art Nexus) and Prácticas vs. Teoréticas. She got certified in “Diseño y producción tipográfica” from the program developed by Tipografilia Estudios in 2024 (Mexico City) and won second place in the Rafael Cadenas Poetry competition (Venezuela) in the same year with “Araya.” She is currently developing a text typeface called Maracaibo as part of her research on identity.
orianamargarita.art
letramuerta.nyc
Living Archives: Photobooks as community builder
Lukas Birk
Thursday, September 11th, 2:30–3:15PM
This talk examines how photobooks can serve as living archives that circulate within communities and reshape the way histories are remembered, utilized, or revisited. Focusing on overlooked photographic practices such as itinerant box camera photography in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Turkey, and on locally produced publications like the Myanmar Photo Archive, Birk shows how publishing can transform forgotten records into active cultural tools that become a form of community building, inspiring new generations to continue and transform this history through practice as well as scholarship.
Lukas Birk is a photo artist, researcher and publisher. Lukas researches his imagery through investigations and explorations very often in areas that have been affected by conflict and have not yet had the chance to present existing material in an artistic form such as Afghanistan or Myanmar. He co-founded artist platforms and residency programs in China and Indonesia, an archive platform in Afghanistan and initiated the Myanmar Photo Archive. Since 2011 he publishes books on photographic history under the imprint Fraglich Publishing. Lukas gives workshops in printmaking, photobook making and consults on visual narrative construction. He is a Fulbright Fellow and studied photography at the University of West London and printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design.
lukasbirk.com
afghanboxcamera.com
instantboxcamera.com
For more information, email: lisa@penumbrafoundation.org