msdm a nomadic house-studio-gallery for photographic art and curatorial research, an expanded practice of the artist's book, photobook publishing and peer-to-peer collaboration created by contemporary artist paula roush

TITLE PROJECT:
Photobooks as sequential archives
Researching photobook publishing through
integration of photographic and book art practices
AUTHOR: paula roush
MEDIUM: REF Portfolio
For Reseach Excellence Framework see here
LOCATION: Open Research at LSBU
London South Bank University
A repository of research generated by
LSBU staff and students
URL: https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/899y9
YEAR: 2021

300 WORD DESCRIPTOR

The investigation into the creation of photobook works is a continuum of my practice as artist-curator working with photographic archives. A research question underlies my projects: What is distinctive about the photobook as a medium to elicit visual narratives from photographic archives? The practice shows that an integration of photographic and book art practices creates interactive space-time sequences that are unique and otherwise not available in the administrative archive.

Two research projects explore the potential of archives of orphan photographs as source for photobook publishing and display:

[output 1]- Orphan Editions – photobooks and photographic editions sourced from the Found Photo Foundation— a photographic archive for the study and care of
orphan photographs;

[output 2]- Torn, Folded, Curled- photobooks sourced from Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation photographic archive. These projects investigate photobook‘s visual sequencing structures as generative of historical knowledge and memory.

[output 3]  msdm publications, a small-scale model of photobook publishing, guided by artistic research and the investigation of both formal and conceptual aspects of the photobook medium. 

The research has impact on the ways it sits in the public domain: msdm publications are
1-included in international public book art collections and exhibitions;
2- made available to the audiences: working collaboratively through workshops, with first-time photobook publishers, and art and humanitarian organisations, supporting them in exhibiting and publishing their photographic archives.
In the aim of disseminating knowledge, the research was
presented at

[output 4]- The Order and Collapse Lives of Archives Conference at the University of Gothenburg and its critical theoretical perspective published on a peer-reviewed monograph (2016).

[output 5]- The Archive: Visual Culture In The Middle East symposium at the Lebanese American University, School of Architecture & Design, 2019. (publication forthcoming)

paula-roush-floramccallica32-03


output 1]- Orphan Editions – photobooks and photographic editions sourced from the Found Photo Foundation
— a photographic archive for the study and care of
orphan photographs;

paula-roush-arab-image-foundation-today-01


[output 2]- Torn, Folded, Curled- photobooks sourced from Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation photographic archive.

The Beauties of DECOMPOSITION collab Michael Hampton


[output 3]  msdm publications, a small-scale model of photobook publishing, guided by artistic research and the investigation of both formal and conceptual aspects of the photobook medium. 

ordercollapse-cover


[output 4]- Chaos of Memories: Surviving Archives and the Ruins of History According to the Found Photo Foundation.   published in The Order and Collapse Lives of Archives.


bayroumi-wirebound-3


[output 5]- The Archive: Visual Culture In The Middle East symposium at the Lebanese American University, School of Architecture & Design, 2019. (publication forthcoming)

contact

paula roush   :::   paularoush@gmail.com
msdm studio :::      msdm@msdm.org.uk