I have been thinking a lot lately about the readership of photobooks which is, in most cases, limited. Limited in quantity, breadth and diversity*. This is little concern for self referential and egotistical works but what about the bookworks that contain questions, answers and thoughts that a wider readership could benefit from.
One such project is ‘Understanding Stanley, Looking Through Autism‘ by Rosie Barnes, a “beautiful new photo book that gives a unique and powerful visual insight into life on the autism spectrum.” In the Kickstarter video featured below, Rosie mentions that she ideally wants this book to be seen by the person standing next to Stanley at a bus shelter who through reading the book may better understand and be more inclined to find out more about autism – what a powerful idea. The book is affordable, a digital edition would make it more so, perhaps this is a photobook that will really break the photobook bubble, find it’s way into school’s curriculums even?
*Lately newspaper works have sought to fill this need but they are few and far between in relation to good photobooks and could be said to ignore people under 20/25 for whom the medium is un-relateable and cumbersome.