Book Building: Dayanita Singh and Gerhard Steidl

What’s the difference between building a book and simply making one? In this talk Dayanita Singh and her longtime printer and publisher Gerhard Steidl share the secrets of their collaboration. A self-declared “offset artist”, Singh calls Steidl her “co-conspirator” and together they craft publications that redefine the book as an object and its place in the worlds of art and publishing. For them a book is a mobile concept patiently realized in diverse forms – as a suite of accordion-fold booklets in a clamshell box, as a visual novel, a book with 88 cover variations, a collection of postcards, a fold-out poster…

Using offset lithography as a creative medium, Singh and Steidl print images of a quality that matches traditional exhibition prints. Singh accordingly displays her books in unorthodox ways that recast the boundaries of the museum/gallery and publishing: for example installing accordion booklets as the exhibition itself, and inviting buyers of the book to do the same at home – and thus become curators of her work. Based on intuition, a passion for analogue processes, a deep understanding of materials, a healthy suspicion of convention and not a little humour, Singh and Steidl’s book building is both a blueprint and inspiration for all photographers working in book form.

Moderation: Monte Packham