Graeme Farnell on MuseumsEtc: ‘We would like to encourage photographers to play a role in change’
Edinburgh imprint MuseumsEtc produces a diverse and distinctive range of books. The publisher’s driving force Graeme Farnell tells Neil Cooper that a common thread binds it all together
Since 2008 or thereabouts, MuseumsEtc has published more than 100 titles that fuse photography, social history and politics in a series of beautifully bespoke editions. Three new books sum up the quietly radical ethos of the Edinburgh-based but avowedly internationalist independent imprint. Jo Spence: The Unknown Recordings compiles transcripts of tapes made by the feminist writer and photographer that reveal an unflinching and at times painful look at her life and work as a low-paid working-class artist. The texts are accompanied by images taken in her cramped Islington flat that make for an intimate and unsettling self-portrait of one of the late 20th century’s most singular of artists.
The Erasure Of Palestine collects more than 80 images taken over three years by photographer Ahmad Al-Bazz showing what remains of the hundreds of towns and villages depopulated and destroyed during the creation and expansion of Israel from 1948 to now. Culture And Capitalism, meanwhile, is a collection of essays by cultural theorist Henry Giroux. In a series of new works that dissect neo-liberalism, Giroux posits the notion that culture has become the central battleground in the struggle against all-encroaching authoritarianism and stands on the frontline of this fight.
‘On the face of it, they look like very different books,’ says MuseumEtc’s founder Graeme Farnell. ‘One is about Palestine, one is about an artist who died quite a few years ago now, and one is by a Canadian academic. But they’re all really looking at culture and art and photography in the context of capitalism. What we’re interested in is the way in which artists, or photographers in particular, can use their art to really argue against all the things that we know are not right.’
As a former museum curator, Farnell initially published books for museums and galleries before developing an interest in photography. Rather than looking at recent history in gritty black and white, however, MuseumsEtc’s focus is on socially engaged new work. ‘There are plenty of things that need to change,’ says Farnell, ‘and we would like to facilitate and encourage photographers to play a role in that. Therefore, we’re publishing books by photographers, or in one case an academic, who are cogent about the changes they want and are making a big effort to make them happen.’
More information can be found at the MuseumsEtc site.