Page-Turner platform - msdm [mobile strategies of display & mediation] publications is a house-studio-gallery founded by paula roush

"PAGE-TURNER"
photography, the book & self-publishing

Founded in 2015 by mobile strategies of display & mediation (msdm), the page-turner collective is a workshop-exhibition platform that aims to disseminate a hands-on approach to photobook publishing at the intersection of photography and the artist's book. The first iteration of the page-turner collective took place at the Matimar storefront, a satellite space of the Lisbon Photographic Archives, in collaboration with The New Suspects, organizers of the Lisbon Photobook Fair. During a four-day intensive workshop, artists with photographic projects ready to be made into bookworks had the opportunity to create and showcase new photobooks at the Lisbon Photobook Fair.

Since its inception, the page-turner collective has become a mobile platform and has had the opportunity to collaborate with a number of prestigious organizations and institutions, including the London Victoria & Albert Museum Academy, Aarhus Photobook Week, the Finnish Association of Photographic Artists, the Finnish Museum of Photography, and the Novia University Master of Culture and Arts: Photography program. These collaborations have allowed the collective to reach a wider audience and continue its mission of supporting artists and fostering the creation of new photobooks.

The page-turner collective promotes an expanded notion of publishing as photographic practice, with a focus on humor, the everyday, and the archive. The collective's approach to photobook publishing is anchored in five key principles: (1) handling a large number of photographs through the use of group/series/sequence formulas, (2) using a documentary approach to elevate photographs to lived experience through the "story-showing" technique, (3) combining photographs with text and typography to create a playful reading experience, (4) leveraging the sensorial and material identity of the book object to engage the reader's sense of touch through a "haptic mode," and (5) using handmade maquettes, or "book dummies," to showcase work in progress and facilitate project development. The page-turner term, while perhaps hyperbolic, analogizes the medium's affordances and haptic reading strategies, inviting readers to engage with the book form and its traditionally recognizable features in a multisensory way.