Instructional Photography: Learning How to Live Now

A timely and explosive book by acclaimed artist and writer Carmen Winant, Instructional Photography offers an investigation of a genre of photographs Winant calls “instructional.” It asks: can photographs teach, in and of themselves? Alternating between found images and shorter, text-based observations, Winant delves into this category of images through her own collection, understanding them as something beyond, or at least in between, documentary and fine art. Included in the volume are pictures of dog-training techniques, home gynecological exams and sitting Shiva, among many others. The book builds on a presentation that Winant delivered at the MoMA Contemporary Photo Forum in September 2020.

Carmen Winant (born 1983) is an artist and writer based in Columbus, Ohio, where she is the Roy Lichtenstein Endowed Chair of Studio Art at Ohio State University. Her recent artist’s books, My Birth and Notes on Fundamental Joy, were published by SPBH Editions, ITI Press and Printed Matter.