Saint Lucy Books Coming Soon!

Please support our Kickstarter for 27 Contexts: An Anecdotal History in Photography by Mark Alice Durant

  27 Contexts: An Anecdotal History in Photography is a series of linked essays / personal narratives anchored in the phenomenon of photography, that tell an episodic story of my interaction with, looking at, learning about and making photographs. Family snapshots, iconic photo journalism, my own pictures, historical imagery, Playboy centerfolds, art photographs, paranormal imagery, documents of performance art, and celestial images from the Hubble Space Telescope, all play an essential role in what is essentially my quest to create narrative continuity out of fragmentation. The book also features imagery by Josef Koudelka, Nan Goldin, Larry Sultan, Julia Margaret Cameron, Isaac Julian, Maya Deren, Chris Marker, David Wojnarowicz, Francis Bacon, Odilon Redon, and others. The intersecting narratives are as varied as the photographs; childhood wonder, family turmoil, falling in love, class consciousness, social unrest, political violence, education, and the epiphanies and limitations of art. Separately and together, these essays examine how photography has become inextricably bound in our personal and collective histories. 27 Contexts will be approximately 250 pages with 60 color and black and white images. Designed by Guenet Abraham, who designed one of my previous books “Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology, and the Paranormal” (co-authored with Jane D. Marsching), 27 Contexts promises to be an elegant object.