Extinction Party: A Photobook Case Study
Online Talk with Jonathan Blaustein, Caleb Cain Marcus, and Jennifer Yoffy
Thursday, June 25, 2020, 7pm EST
Free and open to the public
Registration required

Have you ever wondered what goes into the creation of a photobook, from the initial project idea to the final publication and beyond? Join Aurora for a moderated conversation with the creative team behind Extinction Party, published by Yoffy Press and released this past March. This timely book offers an incisive look at our culture of mass consumption in a globalized world. Led by Aurora’s Mary Goodwin, the talk features photographer Jonathan Blaustein, designer Caleb Cain Marcus, and publisher Jennifer Yoffy for an evening of anecdotal stories, lessons, and experiences as Extinction Party went from idea to reality. Some discussion topics will include:

* When to take the leap from a personal project to a book
* How to approach publishers
* The creative collaboration between the photographer, designer, and publisher
* An honest assessment of funding a book project
* What happens after your book is published

Extinction Party is photographer and conceptual artist Jonathan Blaustein’s first book and brings together over a decade’s worth of research on consumption in America. His elegant images investigate the relationship between what we take from the earth and what we receive in return. Published at the advent of the global pandemic, Extinction Party makes clear that there is a price to pay, beyond the cash register, for the overconsumption of our planet’s resources. In his introduction to the book, Blaustein writes, “It’s the end of the world as we know it. We humans treat the planet like one big, rowdy, discount super-market: a Trader Joe’s filled with chickens, cows and pigs. And we’re hungry for all of it.”

To register for the talk and receive a Zoom link, please click here or visit https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcocOigpjgsHd3sXHcb4TWgZfonkswg_cxO

Please email any questions you have for the panel to info@auroraphoto.org.

Jonathan Blaustein is an artist, writer, and educator based in Taos, New Mexico. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the State of New Mexico, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among other institutions. Jonathan is a regular contributor to the popular blog A Photo Editor and spent six years as a photography critic for the New York Times Lens blog. He has also written about art and photography online for The New Yorker, VICE, and Hyperallergic.

Caleb Cain Marcus has work is the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the High Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts Houston. His work has been published in contemporary photography journals such as PDN, Musée, American Photo and Professional Photographer and mainstream magazines Conde Nast Traveler, Orion and Audubon as well as online journals such as Feature Shoot, Fraction, F-stop, Slate, Lens Culture, Smithsonian, My Modern Met and Hyperallergic. Caleb is the author of A Portrait of Ice (2012), A brief movement after death (2018) and Iterations (2019). He is also the founder of Luminosity Lab, a design and print studio.

Jennifer Yoffy is a publisher, photographer, and arts advocate based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the founder/publisher of Yoffy Press, an independent publisher dedicated to pushing the boundaries of photobook publishing. 

Don't worry everything is going to be OK?, Jonathan Blaustein