Photobook Conversations #4: Valentina Abenavoli
Valentina Abenavoli is an editor, book designer and visual artist working at the intersection of photography, video, sound and text. She has led intensive workshops on photo editing and bookmaking internationally. In 2012, she co-founded Akina, an independent publishing house producing challenging photobooks by emerging photographers. Her first photobook, Anaesthesia, was released in 2016, followed by her second book, The Harvest, in 2017. Both are part of an ongoing trilogy investigating the subjects of empathy and evil. Recently, she co-founded Neighbour, an alternative art space in Trivandrum, India, focusing on exhibitions, publishing and collaborations.
via 1000 Words: https://1000wordsmag.com/photobook-conversations-4-valentina-abenavoli/
When I think of my life before working at Akina, I recall a fascination for photobooks that was raw and unshaped – an early, unrefined intuition that supported an imaginative approach without prior knowledge, in its mad and vast simplicity. I would pick up a book because of its cover or title, without knowing what to expect with each turning page. As I learned the narrative structures and rhythm of sequences, I took my sweet time with each book, and some stories, in all their complexities, would linger in my mind for a long time, unfolding in multiple serendipities and nocturnal epiphanies. It was a real pull, a magnetic one, that had been the primary subject of my thoughts for many years. That blissful ignorance is what I now miss deeply.
https://1000wordsmag.com/photobook-conversations-4-valentina-abenavoli/