Photobook Conversations #2: Aneta Kowalczyk

Photobook Conversations #2

Aneta Kowalczyk

Photobook Conversations is edited by Ana Casas Broda (Hydra + Fotografía), Anshika Varma (Offset Projects) and Duncan Wooldridge (Manchester Metropolitan University). Sitting alongside the earlier Writer Conversations (1000 Words, 2023), edited by Lucy Soutter and Duncan Wooldridge, and Curator Conversations (1000 Words, 2021), edited by Tim Clark, it completes the series exploring the ways our understanding and experience of photography is mediated through exhibitions, writing and publishing.

Aneta Kowalczyk | Photobook Conversations #2 | 11 Nov 2024

Aneta Kowalczyk is a self-taught photo editor, book designer and art director at BLOW UP PRESS. The books she has designed have won several awards, including the European Design Award (2024), POY81 Pictures of the Year International (2024), Polish Graphic Design Awards (2019, 2022), Prix Bob Calle du livre d’artiste (2023), International Photography Awards (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) and Maribor Photobook Award (2020). She also been shortlisted for Les Rencontres d’Arles Book Award (2022, 2024), Lucie Photo Book Award (2022) and PHotoESPAÑA (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2024).

What were the encounters which started your relationship with photobooks?

In my case, it was a natural development. Everything started with the first publication we produced within BLOW UP PRESS. This was an online monthly magazine dedicated to documentary photography, doc! photo magazine. It was a real lesson for me as all my previous design projects were related to corporate identity. Making the magazine, being in a strict time regime, taught me to organise my working system. It was something that was very useful when switching to paper. From the beginning, we wanted our magazine to focus on photographs, to let them talk, with as little distraction as possible. We wanted to have all pictures visible in full, even if they were on spreads, and we wanted the magazine to be a clear statement. With all this in mind, I had to learn how to make it happen.

As I didn’t like how some photo magazines were designed, I followed the approach of the architecture and fashion magazines. I cannot provide any titles here, but they all represented the highest printing quality, and they paid a lot of attention to the images. They were not afraid of big white spaces on the page, nor were they afraid of placing the images on different parts of page and in different sizes to let them breathe and give them a proper visual flow. And what is also very important is that they used bindings and papers borrowed from books, not from regular magazines. Much easier for me to list is some photobooks or books containing photographs that inspired me: The Irreversible (2013) by Maciek Nabrdalik, Karl Lagerfeld’s book about nothing but which is amazing as an object, The Little Black Jacket (2012), and then two books by Japanese artists that are simply masterpieces for me: The Restoration Will (2017) by Mayumi Suzuki and Silent Histories (2015) by Kazuma Obara. And finally, Parasomnia (2011) by Viviane Sassen. You can discover some of their solutions and ideas in our magazine as well as in our books.

Seeing them, or experiencing them, I started to feel the need to create something more durable than a magazine, something that would stay a bit longer, a book. It was necessary for me to free myself from the magazine routine or the magazine-like style of working. I wanted to explore multi-layered and long-term projects, and to create books that go beyond just presenting imagery and text. And then, by the end of 2017, five years after the first issue of doc! photo magazine was uploaded on our website, I designed my first photobook – 9 Gates of No Return (2017) by Agata Grzybowska, which became a driving force for further books.

I’m still learning. It’s not that you stop at one moment. If you do, you risk that you will get into a routine and then all your projects will look the same. For me, the most refreshing moment when thinking about books and what they can look like, how they can be constructed and from which materials, not necessarily papers, came when visiting Ivorypress’ collection of art books. If you happen to be in Madrid, you should go there. This one visit may change a lot.

What is your process for arriving at decisions about books and the projects that you undertake?

At BLOW UP PRESS, we have a motto which goes: “When the story matters.” And that is the most important factor for me when deciding whether to undertake a project or not. I must feel the project, I must be touched by the story. It must resonate with me and my emotions. Then I try to understand the artist’s intentions, motivations and thinking. It takes a lot of time to enter into somebody’s mind, but it is necessary to understand all aspects of the project to transfer its complexity into a book. And I definitely like to be challenged. I don’t have any specific topic I am looking for. I prefer multilayered, long-term projects; really going into the details, exploring the story in all possible ways, where I can see that the artist dedicated themself to making it.

The rest is a journey meandering through the project. All my decisions are dictated by the story, whether we are talking about the paper, book format, length or layout. The book must mirror the project and not simply insert it into some readymade graphic template. The design should somehow be invisible, not to be more important than the story it provides. Each decision taken by the designer must be based on the project and how to make it sound its best, so that the final reader will be impacted, or hopefully floored, by it.

How important is it for photobooks to reach other continents?

Photobooks use the most communicative language of the world: images. Thanks to this, they can be easily understood in any place in the world. Therefore, reaching other continents should be something natural. The bigger audience of the book, the better it is for the story, its reach. Not to mention the artist, publisher and designer, of course. Imagine you live in Australia. It’s a big country but contrary to its size, the photobook market is relatively small. So, if you want your story to reach as many readers as possible, if you want your project to be a game changer, you must go beyond some limitations, including geographical ones. It was also the case for BLOW UP PRESS. We come from Poland which has a population of 40 million people, with a visual culture that is in an early stage in the direct aftermath of Communist time and a lack of proper visual education at schools. If we were to count on our domestic market only, we would have been out of business years ago. As a result, we stopped making separate Polish language editions of our books as we would just lose the money on them. Besides, the English language is becoming more and more popular in Poland, so we reach our audience here anyway.

What do you think is the significance of the shift towards the book as an object?

At BLOW UP PRESS, we often say we do not make photobooks but art objects. For us, each book is another galaxy with all its own secrets, dark and bright sides. Today, when you visit any photobook fair or bookstore, you will see many books coming from different publishers and artists that look exactly the same, created with the same templates I already mentioned. For me, the photobook’s visual qualities summon experience and emotions and it is exactly this what I’m trying to reflect in my projects.

When I think about the book as an object, the only word that comes to my mind is experience. The reader should experience the book the same way the artist experienced the project. The role of the designer is to transform the artist’s feelings into material form. And this materiality refers to everything, from the papers, through to printing techniques, the interactivity of the book in terms of inserts or any hidden content, up to the final book format and cover.

Let me illustrate this with an example. Recently, BLOW UP PRESS released the book Eternal U (2023) by Hubert Humka that covers the topic of passing, the life and death cycle, eternality. It consists of photographs of British forests existing as natural burial places. The artist came to me saying: “I don’t want to have just a nice book with photographs of forest, I want an artbook. Do whatever you want with my photographs.” It would be very easy to destroy such a fragile project using shiny coated paper or having a traditional approach to layout. In order to translate the artist’s ideas into the final book, I decided to use recycled papers only, to emboss the entire text instead of printing it, and to create negatives from some of the photographs to reflect the cycle of life and death. I wanted readers to be lost in the forest, and so all photographs are printed full bleed. Thanks to embossing, the readers can also experience the bark of a tree if they touch the back side of the page. All this matters for this project and for this book. And all of this makes this book an object to experience. When a friend showed this book to his students, he told them: “Watch with your hands.” So, as you can see, it is something more than just seeing and contemplating images. You must also feel them, physically. This makes the book a desired object to come back to, to collect, to think about in terms of the story it provides and to experience. Yes, it will cost more than a regular photobook, but it is worth making the additional effort.

What is the place of language and writing in a book of photographs?

They say that good pictures will defend themselves and in most cases it’s true. But sometimes it is necessary to give them proper context so they can be read in the way the artist intends them to be seen, regardless of the place and the time. There are many examples of images that were misunderstood when they first emerged, or which outraged the public, and today we admire them. And vice versa. If we give them proper context made through writing, we feel more secure that they will be read in the way were made. Times change, our understanding the world change as well, so does the reception of images. The same refers to photobooks which consist or may consist of such images.

Language in the photobook is also important. It’s the same as with your question about reaching other continents. The more popular, universal or globally known the language you use in the book, the better for the book. As I said, at BLOW UP PRESS, we publish books in English as it is the most widely learned second language in the world, but in some books, we also introduce other languages especially when the project has significant meaning for the local community and/or the artist. What really matters here is to make sure that the text within the book does not overtake the meaning of photographs. We should remember that in photobooks, the story is presented through images, not through the text. The text here is always supplementary to the images. Not the other way around.

Who have been the models or templates for your own activities?

I am a self-taught photo editor and designer. So everything I know, I have learned from my own mistakes and obstinacy! However, there are two artists I would like to mention. The first is the designer Ania Nałęcka-Milach, it’s thanks to her that I felt in love with photobooks. I am always impressed by her projects and how open she is to share her expertise with other designers. The second person is the amazing Yumi Goto. It’s incredible how she can lead artists and their projects from the idea to the final object. They don’t know this, but these two women shaped me as a conscious photobook designer.

What would make a better photobook ecosystem?

There is a lot that could be done to make it better. Proper visual education in schools and better state support for photobook publishers and sellers for starters. Also, a greater assertiveness among publishers to not be afraid to refuse publications when they see that the project is weak. Not all projects merit the book format, let’s be honest. Some projects work much better in shorter form and others should never leave the drawer of the artist. We should all be more aware and conscious of qualities and the need for particular projects to provide readers with good books. They deserve this and we owe it to them.

What’s currently on your desk?

A few projects such as the book by Polish artist Weronika Gęsicka titled Encyclopædia. In it, manipulated stock photographs and AI generated images illustrate false entries she tracked down in different dictionaries, lexicons and encyclopedias. Weronika comments on a contemporary world attacked by fake news that threatens the credibility of media and our freedom. It is another project that adheres to the ethos of BLOW UP PRESS, as fake news is now one of the biggest tools used to manipulate our opinions and minds. It is a very important topic and working on this has been a privilege for me as through this book I can also mark my position on the phenomenon of information disorder. ♦

Further interviews in the Photobook Conversations series can be read here

—
Photobook Conversations is edited by Ana Casas Broda (Hydra + Fotografía), Anshika Varma (Offset Projects) and Duncan Wooldridge (Manchester Metropolitan University). Sitting alongside the earlier Writer Conversations (1000 Words, 2023), edited by Lucy Soutter and Duncan Wooldridge, and Curator Conversations (1000 Words, 2021), edited by Tim Clark, it completes the series exploring the ways our understanding and experience of photography is mediated through exhibitions, writing and publishing.

Images:

2-Near Dark from Weronika Gęsicka: Encyclopædia, published by BLOW UP PRESS and Jednostka Gallery (November 2024)

3-Théophile Fogeys Sr from Weronika Gęsicka: Encyclopædia, published by BLOW UP PRESS and Jednostka Gallery (November 2024)

4-Jungftak from Weronika Gęsicka: Encyclopædia, published by BLOW UP PRESS and Jednostka Gallery (November 2024)

1000 Words favourites

• Renée Mussai on exhibitions as sites of dialogue, critique, and activism.

• Roxana Marcoci navigates curatorial practice in the digital age.

• Tanvi Mishra reviews Felipe Romero Beltrán’s Dialect.

• Discover London’s top five photography galleries.

• Tim Clark in conversation with Hayward Gallery’s Ralph Rugoff on Hiroshi Sugimoto.

• Academic rigour and essayistic freedom as told by Taous R. Dahmani.