Kathryn Allen Hurni: House of Surprises/Twinsburg

I'm at the halfway point, somewhere in the middle of the alphabet, somewhere around portfolio #400 in the jurying process for Issue 12 of Aint-Bad Magazine, and here is a surprise. A great surprise. Twins. Many sets of them. Maybe all of us are a little obsessed with identical twins (or a lot obsessed, like me). I had friends with identical twins: so identical their own parents couldn't tell them apart. I thought it would be great to teach them to finish each other's sentences and to answer for one another, but they already did that instinctively. They didn't need me to teach them any tricks. They already switched t-shirts and took tests for each other too. They had it down. I looked for them in Kathryn Allen Hurni's series of photographs titled, House of Surprises, but they haven't made it to Twinsburg, Ohio. Not yet. They're too young to have drivers' licenses, which is probably why their parents' hair isn't grey...

I saw Kathryn's pictures and was thrilled to learn about this festival and celebration and also to see her wonderful photographs on the subject of twins. Many years ago (I hesitate to say decades...even though it is more than twenty years ago now), I assisted Mary Ellen Mark and was always in awe of how when asked how she got a picture, she would reply, I just go in shooting. She was a master and also someone you couldn't say no to. I sense from Kathryn Allen Hurni's pictures, that she held some conversations with the subjects of her portraits and then raised her camera.

Here is what the artist had to say about her project:

Throughout every stage of photography exists the act of encountering. As a photographer, I'm confronted by my vision, or particular desire to photograph a specific subject amongst a crowd. I'm confronted by obfuscation; am I capturing the subject's truth or mine- does it matter? In many ways, the act of engaging with photography is like stepping in front of a mirror and encountering some version of the self. And I wonder how it is to have a physical reflection of the self with a twin: some person that is within and apart.

This ongoing series documents the annual twins festival in Twinsburg, OH; the same fair that Mary Ellen Mark attended while producing her body of work, Twins.

Biography

Kathryn Allen Hurni, born in 1984, attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where she obtained a B.F.A. in Photography. Since graduating in 2006 her work has been shown in several exhibitions in collaboration with Aperture Gallery, Manifest Gallery, and The Center for Fine Art Photography. She had her first solo show at Penn State University in 2015, where she delivered an artist talk to the BFA students and teachers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including T Magazine, DETAILS, WSJ, and W Magazine. Hurni currently divides her time between her fine art practice and her commercial work as a freelance lifestyle photographer and retoucher. Hurni is based in Brooklyn, NYC.

Virginia Hanusik: Into the Quiet and the Light

By Virginia Hanusik

Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City

2024 | 184 pages

In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.

With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.

Rawsht Twana: Twana’s Box

By Rawsht Twana

Publisher : Fraglich Publishing

2024 | 252 pages

Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering

By Akinbode Akinbiyi

Publisher : Spector Books

2024 | 252 pages

Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society

Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

By Grace Wales Bonner

Publisher : The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2024 | 184 pages

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.

Kathryn Allen Hurni: House of Surprises/Twinsburg

Kathryn Allen Hurni on Instagram

Selected Books