'Tropical Reading: Photobook and Self-Publishing is divided into three parts: a) artists; b) art bookstores; c) photobooks and self-publishing scenes; plus, an appendix and an index of ten cities. A bilingual publication, the English version reads from left to right; the Chinese version right to left.
The first section illustrates the photography practitioners and artist collectives from each city in Southeast Asia, examining why they chose to get into self-publishing. The second section explores the ways in which independent art bookstores came to be the social parlors of the self-publishing crowd. The third section island-hops between the photobook and self-publishing phenomena of recent years, observing how the outsider artists, archives and arts initiatives of Southeast Asia came to shape the face of photography and self-publishing in their respective cities.
As an appendix, “So, Why Photobook?” explores the changing meaning of the term “photobook” in different linguistic contexts, the myriad of links between the term and the physical object – and ultimately, why exactly we do photobooks.
The final part of the book, the index, is a compilation of our project field research, condensing the profiles of all the interviewees – from people to bookstores to organizations – to make a kind of alternative Yellow Pages for the Southeast Asian art scene.' — from publisher
Onsite
English, 
Chinese - Traditional
independent publishing,  photography,  South East Asia,  independent art space,  artist group
2022
239
9789869862844
1
monograph, 
directory/guide/manual
A: Artists and Self-Publishers
Sprouting through the Cracks: Self-Publishing Attempts
SOKONG! Publish: Circle in on a New Kind of Photography
Books as Independent Curating's 'Safe Space' - Vietnam's Independent Publisher Dang Thanh Long
Seeing Is Being: "I Believe in Photography" - Photographer Kornkrit Jianpinidnan
The Man in Conflict Zones: Why Did a Foreigner Initiate a Visual Archive in Myanmar?
B: Independent Art Bookstores
To the Future: "How Far Can Local Indonesian Photobooks Go?" - Unobtainium Photobooks, the Bookstore Casting the First Pebble Into the Sea
When Physical Books Breed Conversation: A Microcosm of Independent Art Bookstores
Not Just Starting, but Also Sustaining: artbook.ph's Manila Survival Guide
C. Photobook & Self-Publishing Scenes
Jakarta and Yogyakarta's Photobooks: A Decade of Evolution in Publishing Form and Distribution
To Make Publicly Known: How Alternative Arts Initiatives Vernacularize through Publishing
Photography and Art Publishing on the Ground: Education for the People, by the People
Appendix: So, Why Photobook?
Tropical Reading: Photobook & Self-Publishing, 熱帶島讀:攝影書與自出版

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