The Melbourne Photobook Collective is a group of artists/photographers based in and around Melbourne. Our collaboration is founded on a shared interest in making and talking about photobooks. We participate in art and photobook fairs where we sell our work and talk with others about making and reading photobooks. This website is another way to share and talk about photobooks.
Anne Davies
Featured Books
The Abandoned Series is published by Albumen Publishing. The series brings together photobooks that each in its own way explore how we see and deal with things abandoned, passed by. Covering a wide thematic spectrum – ranging from architecture to everyday objects – the titles ultimately share a common interest in how we deal with the transitory nature of the world around us.
Melbourne Photobook Collective members are contributing to this series, and the books can be found in the shop for purchase.
About
The collective formed around 2015 after a master class in photobook making at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) in Melbourne. The class was run by Marshall Weber a US based Artist and Stephen Dupont, a well known Australian photographer and book maker.
After the class a few of us “clicked” and we decided to form a group. The idea was to meet regularly and share projects and inspiration.
Around the time we formed the National Gallery of Victoria had a call-out for their Art Book Fair. We decided to apply and were successful, and have participated every year since 2017. The fair is as much about networking as it is about selling our books and is always a pleasurable experience to meet new people here.
Each alternate year we have also attended the Ballarat Foto Bienalle, participating in the book fair and events, as well as the art book fairs associated with the Photo20XX fairs.
We have in the past run workshops or participated in forums at the CCP and other events either Photo20XX or Design Week events.
Participating in the MPC has allowed us to sell work outside the main stream retail segment and meet some amazing people. Having the NGV and other book fairs are a prompt to keep working on fresh ideas and books as we can show these to those who come and visit us.