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©Tamsin Green
The Photobook Ecosystem: Searching for Sustainable Approaches
Summary of a panel discussion hosted by spp network and 10X10 Photobooks (26 April 2022)
SPP Network and 10X10 Photobooks hosted an online conversation on 26 April 2022 discussing sustainability in relation to the photobook at each stage of its design, making, distribution, display and consumption. The full recording of the talk and further information about each of the speakers is available here. Below is a summary of this discussion and a series of case studies looking at how each of the participants have thought about sustainability within their own practice.
Scale & Substance: Tamsin Green in Conversation with Sid Motion and Dafna Talmor
Transcribed from an artist talk at Photofusion Gallery, London (31 March 2022)
Kim Shaw: Welcome back to Photofusion for our first live artist talk in over two years. Still not sure how I feel about it, but got my mask and everything. It feels very strange to have you back the gallery, but thank you for coming. So I have to say, I have three of my favourite people here tonight. I'm so happy that we're doing this tonight. I'm not chairing the talk, so I'm just going to introduce Sid who's going to introduce Dafna and Tamsin.
Drawn to Scale by Eugenie Shinkle
Commissioned as part of the exhibition and publication Scale & Substance (March 2022)
The first known maps, which date back tens of thousands of years, were simple diagrams of the earth and sky. Unlike present-day maps, they contained no means of finding our own place in the landscape. Modern maps make space for the subject. Like their early precursors, they record the visible features of a place, but they also incorporate scales, symbols and grids that allow the observer to work out their own position. Maps are more than simple depictions of terrain – they are tools for creating a stable relation between self and space.
this is how the earth must see itself Interviewed by Kim Shaw
Photomonitor (Dec 2021)
In this special year-end interview, Tamsin Green is speaking about her newest publication This is How the Earth Must See Itself which has recently been published to great acclaim. In conversation with Kim Shaw, Green reveals the background to her latest project, on view later this month at Photofusion, London.
Artist books and the Environment by Catriona Gourlay
V&A Museum (Oct 2021)
Artists have always been interpreters of contemporary issues and those who choose the book as their medium are no exception. While artists' books were emerging as an expressive new artform in the 20th century, the global movement of environmentalism, striving to protect the natural world, was also formalising and gaining political expression.
This article looks at three artists who have used the book to express their concerns about environmental issues or adopted environmentally conscious approaches in their practice.
this is how the earth must see itself by Eugenie Shinkle
C4 Journal (Dec 2021)
The first known maps – simple diagrams of the earth and sky – date back tens of thousands of years. Looking at these early representations now, it’s unlikely that we’d recognise them as maps, because they contain no instructions for finding our own position in the landscape. Like their ancient precursors, modern maps record the visible features of a place, but they also incorporate scales, symbols and grids that allow the observer to work out where they are in space. The illusion of autonomy and self-possession that defines the modern subject is not just a matter of mind, in other words, but a spatial imperative – a need to know not just who we are, but where we are.
A journey into the world of photobooks by Jennifer Constable
RPS Journal (Sept 2021)
The latest work by Tamsin Green ARPS is inspired by her love of the English coastline – and published by her own company. While the world was struggling to find a way out of the pandemic, Tamsin Green ARPS was focusing on an ambition she could achieve close to home.
In 2021 the architect and photographer set up a publishing company dedicated to the design and making of environmentally friendly, handmade photobooks. The launch of manual.editions followed her award-winning first photobook, Born of the Purest Parents, self-published in 2018 as 35 individual handmade volumes. It was selected for the Kassel Dummy Award in 2018.
Interviewed by Steve Bisson
Urbanautica Journal (Feb 2019)
«Salt is one of the oldest examples of human intervention in the landscape, right at the epicentre of civilisation. The earliest known town in Europe was built around a salt production facility 6 Millennia ago.»
Tell us about where you grow up. What kind of place it was?
Tamsin Green (TG): A small commuter town surrounded by countryside, on the outskirts of London. The town sits in the London basin, on a bed of chalk and London clay. As a family we spent a lot of time out walking in this flat, wooded landscape.
Born of the Purest Parents by Gemma Padley
Photomonitor (Jan 2019)
‘What makes a good photobook?’ is almost certainly an impossible question to answer, and yet there are several universal considerations: superb images and a strong edit – a given. Text? Perhaps, and if so, how much and where? And what about foldouts and inserts? Side or saddle stitched? And the cover – should it be hardback or softcover? The list goes on…
Born of the Purest Parents by Rachel Arthur
boom saloon. (Jan 2019)
"My work involves hunting and mapping familiar things that are often overlooked or under explored," says photographer Tamsin Green. Her work has taken her to obscure far away locations, often armed with little more than a geologist's toolkit and a series of Google Earth images. Such was the case with her latest project, 'Born of the Purest Parents'. The series was initially conceptualised following a walk through the Carmargue region of Southern France, where the photographer was struck by the white streaks carving through the landscape. On closer inspection, Green recognised them as naturally forming salt. Utilising this familiar mineral as a starting point, she began to explore what more there was to be seen of such an everyday object - examining both its origin and connection to human life.
Spotlight by George Slade
Black & White (April 2017)
How often does it happen that an architect discovers a compelling passion for photography while visiting factories in China? Tamsin Green's experience may not be unique; nonetheless, the results over the past five years have been singular.
Green's career as an architect, ensuing from bachelor's and master's degrees she received in the UK and Japan, had led to regular travels to Northern China. During a 2011 trip she discovered something unexpected. 'I would go for walks when my schedule allowed," she says, "and observe the fast pace at which the cityscape was changing". These walks left her with mixed feelings. She began to carry a camera on her walks and discovered that she could channel those jumbled reactions into image, with surprising results. "i felt I was communicating something... It was a very powerful feeling and it fuelled my thirst to learn about the medium." She took a sabbatical to investigate further, and is now embarked on a continuing photographic journey.
Making and remaking a book called Sleeper by Tamsin Green
RPS Capital (May 2016)
I have always been an avid consumer of books; on design, art, photography, but I really started looking at photobooks when I was living in Tokyo doing an MA. I spent a lot of time in bookshops, and discovered the work of Japanese photographers, Naoya Hatakeyama, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and the Provoke era photographers. I was studying architecture at the time and would look at their use of light and texture. I also looked closely at the choice of paper and how the books felt, all references at the time for making architectural images and portfolios. When I started taking photographs some time later books were a natural aspiration.
In Avoidance of Conflict by Tamsin Green
fLIP: CONFLICT (2014)
On 29 November 2011 the British Embassy in Tehran was attacked and set on fire, days after the UK government had stepped up sanctions against Iran's nuclear programme. The Iranian embassy in London was closed and Iran's diplomats given 48 hours to leave the UK. This was the day I was to submit my passport to the Iranian embassy in London. It was the third visa being obtained for a project I was embarking on in early 2012, travelling by sleeper train from London to India. The passage through Iran had been firmly closed.