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Book Club #6 focuses on projects that have captured (the identity of) a place, city, country or region. Time, and the changes it brings about, also play an important role, set against a particular event or era. Dutch photographer Thomas Manneke will talk about his book "Amsterdam". Also attending is Ukrainian photographer Arthur Bondar. He grew up next to "The Exclusion Zone", a 30km (282,700 hectares) area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that exploded in 1986. Thirty years after the disaster, he went back to the area and visited the zone. The visit resulted in the book "Shadow of Wormwood".

The theme of Book Club #7 is 'faith', set against FOTODOK's current exhibition "Belief, on the move", which is on view until October 23 at the Lange Nieuwstraat 7, Utrecht. On the day of the Book Club, the exhibition will stay open until 19:00 for visitors of the Book Club. First on stage is Xiouxiou Xu, who will talk about her recently published book "Aeronautics in the backyard", directly followed by Rinske Former, and her "It's beautiful when it flies". Florian van Roekel will show us his latest book "Le College". Nicoló Degiorgis will discuss his highly successful book "Hidden Islam" and his role as publisher at Rorhof Publications.

On December 14th Rob Hornstra will present the 8th edition of FOTODOK Book Club. This time we take a close look at a couple of very intriguing murder cases. Our guests for this edition are: Jack Latham, Jan Rosseel, Laura Cnossen and Laia Abril (via Skype). Jack Latham (UK) will talk about his widely acclaimed book "Sugar Paper Theories", which was shortlisted for the 2016 Paris Photo First Book Award. Latham dove in to the Reykjavik Confessions, a high profile murder case from the 1970's. Via Skype we will be talking to Laia Abril (S), on her recently released book "Lobismuller" in which she reconstructs the story of the Tallow Man: the Spanish most enigmatic and well known serial killer. Laura Cnossen (NL) shows us her project "Liefs, Klink". A book on the Dutch Richard Klinkhamer, who killed his wife and buried her in her own backyard. It took the police 9 years to solve the murder.

Photographer and photo-book aficionado Rob Hornstra goes on stage with makers of photo books: photographers, designers and publisher are interrogated about there latest projects. Henk Wildschut will be interviewed about his new book "Ville de Calais", on the growth and decline of an informal refugee village in the dunes near the French city Calais. "Taking off. Henry My Neighbor", by photographer Mariken Wessels has been nominated for the Dutch Photobook Prize, the follow-up of the renowned Kees Scherer Foto Prijs. And Kirill Golovchenko will talk about his books "Bitter Honeydey" and "Out of the Blue".

Join us on 14 September for the 11th edition of the FOTODOK Book Club. Rob Hornstra will interview photographers Max Pinckers (Belgium), Amak Mahmoodian (Iran) and Sanne De Wilde (Belgium). To coincide with our new exhibition "Beyond Us and Them", the theme of this edition of the Book Club is the meaning of identity in a changing society. For his series Lotus, Belgian photographer Max Pinckers documented the world of Thai transsexuals. The gender crisis that the so-called 'ladyboys' face is transformed into a visual metaphor about the identity crisis facing contemporary documentary photography. The documentary photographer who captures reality as the proverbial 'fly on the wall' cannot help but influence his subject, says Pinckers. This does not mean that the resulting photograph is a lie. Rather, the photographer, by his very presence, becomes part of the recorded moment. Rob Hornstra will undoubtedly ask Pinckers more about this. Photographer Sanne De Wilde's will tell us everything about her fascinating journey to Pingelap, 'The Island of the Colorblind'. In Pingelap and Pohnpei, islands in Micronesia, an extraordinarily high percentage of the inhabitants suffer from the rare genetic condition achromatopsia or 'complete color-blindness'. Portraying the mythical island and the achromatopic islanders - who are referred to as 'blind' by their fellow Micronesians - resulted in a selection of images that mask their eyes, their face, and empower their 'vision', inviting the viewer to enter a dreamful world of colorful possibilities. Also present is the Iranian photographer Amak Mahmoodian, whose work is on display in "Beyond Us and Them". She will talk about her book "Shenasnameh", in which she examines uniformity and individuality in Iranian identity documents. 'Shenasnameh' is the name of the Iranian identity card issued at birth. Although the document never expires, the photo on it has to be updated according to government-prescribed standards. These are particularly strict for women, who must wear headscarves covering their hair and no make-up. By bringing a number of these the images together, Mahmoodian shows that diversity can still flourish in the face of conformity.

Simon Roberts (UK) is interested in the relationship between our landscape and our understanding of identity and community. His latest book, "Merrie Albion - Landscape Studies Of A Small Island", contains photographs that Roberts has taken in England over the past 10 years. He focused on places where people come together with a common goal. From air shows to basketball courts and shopping centres, "Merrie Albion - Landscape Studies Of A Small Island" offers a glimpse into British identity at a time when it is under great strain. Mathieu Asselin (FR) will talk about his extensive project "Monsanto, a photographic investigation". Asselin uses his photography, supplemented by an overwhelming amount of archive material, to provide insight into the business operations of one of the most controversial companies in the world. With this work, Asselin won the Prix du Livre at the Les Rencontres d'Arles photo festival in 2016, and he has been nominated for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2017. In her book "False Positives", Esther Hovers (NL) questions the 'intelligent' surveillance systems that are used to monitor public spaces. Guided by algorithms, these systems search for predetermined behaviour that could indicate criminal activity. With her work, Hovers wants to encourage a conversation about the increasing control over our behaviour by autonomous systems. Jan Banning (NL) appears in the item "Van Eigen Bodem" to talk about his book "Red Utopia", for which he made a crowd-funding appeal in an earlier Book Club edition. "Red Utopia" is a visual investigation into the state of communism 100 years after the Russian Revolution.

Bieke Depoorter (BE) will talk about her most recent book "As It May Be". DePoorter travelled to Egypt several times, looking for a new place to sleep every day. She went in search of trust in a country where distrust plays an important role in daily life. This was even more the case during the Arab Spring, during which Depoorter made her first trip. Depoorter succeeded in being invited to photograph many people. At the same time, she became increasingly aware of her role as an outsider, both culturally and as a photographer. To break down that barrier, she travelled back with her photos and asked the people she had photographed to add their own comments to their photos. Ad van Denderen (NL) is an established name in Dutch photography. In his latest book, "Stone", he uses the stone as a metaphor for daily life in Israeli and Palestinian conflict zones: the stone as a weapon, as an obstacle and as protection. Van Denderen began this project 25 years ago. Initially in black and white and a more traditional photojournalistic style. After 10 years he switched to colour and took a more contemplative point of view. By combining these two perspectives, Van Denderen attempts to offer a nuanced view of this very complex conflict.

Robin de Puy (NL) talks about her meeting with 15-year-old Randy during her road trip through America in 2015. She asked him if she could take his portrait, and that photo ended up in her previous book "If This Is True, I'll Never Have To Leave Home Again". But Randy continued to intrigue her, and De Puy returned to him several times in 2016 and 2017. She took hundreds of photos and videos of and with him, which can now be seen in the Bonefanten Museum in Maastricht, and the book of the same name, "Randy". Andrew Phelps (USA) travelled to the National Radio Quiet Zone in Green Bank, West Virginia, for The Drake Equation together with Austrian photographer Paul Kranzler (not present). Established in the 1950s, the Quiet Zone is a place without radio, TV or telephone signals. Originally intended for scientists to explore the universe unhindered with ultra-sensitive telescopes, it is now also popular with so-called 'WIFI refugees', people who are hypersensitive to all kinds of radiation. Together with the original local residents, they have blended into a unique community, shaped by a unique living environment. Christian van der Kooy (NL) is interested in the mystical relationship between people and their environment; places where a shared history causes visible tensions in the cultural, social and economic spheres. In his recently published book "Anastasiia, she folds her memories like a parachute", Van der Kooy tells the story of a rapidly changing country through the eyes of his Ukrainian love Anastasiia. Anastasiia gives the reader a unique insight into the recent history of Ukraine; from the removal of communism to the Maidan uprisings. This book is a declaration of love to her foreign lover and to her homeland.

Rein Jelle Terpstra, who will talk about his book "The People's View". This project offers a counterpoint to the iconic work "RFK Funeral Train" by American photographer Paul Fusco. Fusco was on board the train that transported the body of the late President Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) from New York to Washington DC. From the train, Fusko photographed a cross-section of American society, as people came en masse to pay their respects along the tracks. What you don't see in those images is the train, what were those people looking at? That was the starting point for "The People's View", for which Terpstra spent four years collecting photo and film material. British publisher and author Lewis Bush is also a guest. Bush will talk about his book "Shadows of the State". In this book, Bush investigates the echoes that still linger from the Cold War. Officially, this showdown between East and West ended in 1991. Yet today, all kinds of (in)visible traces can still be found. "Shadows of the State" focuses on mysterious coded radio messages that are still being broadcast. Using open-source sources and research methods, Bush collected the locations of 30 of these transmitters, which he mapped as accurately as possible using publicly available satellite photos. "Shadows of the State" is an investigation into the use of espionage methods that are turned against themselves. Photographer Jan Banning will talk about the commotion that arose around his book "The Sweating Subject". For this book, Banning portrayed himself with chiefs and their entourages in northern Ghana. Banning made this work as part of an assignment for the Noorderlicht Photofestival, which accused Banning of having a 'neo-colonial gaze'. Banning strongly rejects this criticism; his work is actually a critique of what he is accused of.

Dana Lixenberg (NL) focuses her work on communities on the margins of society. Her long-term projects often end up as books, such as "Last Days of the Shishmaref and Imperial Courts". On 6 December, Lixenberg will talk about her iconic portraits of rap greats Tupac and Biggie. The eponymous book is a collection of the portraits that Lixenberg made between 1993 and 1996 for the magazine Vibe. Martin Parr (UK) is one of the most famous and influential photographers of our time. Parr has been capturing everyday British life for decades with his often humorous and sometimes sarcastic gaze. For Parr, his own backyard is the ideal subject. Parr has compiled his work in 94 books so far. During this Book Club, Parr will talk about his 95th book, "Beach Therapy", which will be published soon. Beach life is one of his favourite subjects, which Parr has photographed in a new way for him this time. Bryan Schutmaat (USA) published his first book "Grays the Mountain Sends" in 2013, which immediately won the prize for best photo book at the New York Photo Awards. During his visit to the Book Club, Schutmaat talks to Rob Hornstra about his latest book "Good Goddamn", which is a much more personal project. We see how his friend Kris spends his last days in the Texan countryside before he goes to prison. It is an ode to friendship and the little things that give life meaning.

In this 17th edition of the FOTODOK Book Club we are going to look at books that question (or challenge) the phenomenon of power. Throughout our history power has both been responsible for war, oppression and worldwide inequality. At the same time it also enabled social movements opportunities and human rights for billions. Power is a phenomenon that creates restraints in our society, yet is responsible for the structures that bind us together. Join Rob Hornstra in a conversation with four photographers that explore different kinds of power and their role as image makers in influencing them. Laia Abril (SP) is no stranger to the FOTODOK Book Club. She was our guest on the very first edition, back in 2015. This time she'll be joining us to talk about her compelling book "On Abortion", which is the first part of a larger body of work called "A History of Misogyny". In this body of work she aims to visualise the comparison between the present and the past. Abril wants us to realise that while in large parts of the world woman rights have been embedded in laws, that doesn't mean the underlying issues have disappeared from our societies. "On Abortion" won the 2017 Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation's Photobook of the Year Award. "The Parallel State" by Guy Martin (UK) is a story about power, authoritarianism, and the theatrics of politics. Martin questions in "The Parallel State" the notion of 'truth' in a period dominated by doubt and deception. The series covers the period between the protests in Gezi Park in 2013 until the aftermath of the failed military coup in 2016. In this period President Tayyip Erdogan emerges as an authoritarian leader and Turkey slips into a state of growing lack of freedom. Martin mixes his photos of protests, daily life, soap opera sets and archive material into a new story. The difference between fact and fiction is hard to identify: are we looking at a soap episode? Is this news? It's an attempt to understand contemporary Turkey in all its complexity. Jonas Bendiksen (NO) will be talking about "The Last Testament", for which he traveled all over the world to meet and photograph 7 men that believe they are the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Meaning that they literally believe they embody Jesus Christ, who is prophesied to return back to Earth in both Christianity and Islam. Bendiksen set out not only to meet these 7 men, but also their disciples and spent lang periods of time with them. During his stays Bendiksen tried to take on the role as a photographic apostel. Bendiksen is mainly interested in the question why the Bible story of a returning Messiah has remained so potent in current day society.

The 18th edition of the FOTODOK Book Club takes us to some very remote places. Places that exist on the fringes of society, either by choice or by fate. The photographers don't just show them through their own photography, but build their stories using archival material, drawings and literature. They show us worlds that are inaccessible to most of us, but become visible thanks to these incredible books; Roger Ballen is one of the most important photographers of his generation. Born in New York he has lived and worked in South Africa for over 30 years. Ballen started his working life as a geologist, which took him out into the South African countryside. Bringing his camera Ballen first explored the empty streets but, once he had made the step of knocking on people's doors, he discovered a world inside these houses. The interiors and their occupants had a profound influence on his artistic vision, taking him from a path of social critique to the creation of metaphors for the inner mind. Ballens unique style - Ballenesque - combines photography with drawings, collages, paintings and sculptures. His style has brought him recognition far beyond the world of photography, of which the most well know probably is his collaboration with South African hip hop group Die Antwoord. "Ballenesque" is the first retrospective book of Roger Ballen's extensive work. Maja Daniels has studied photography, journalism and sociology. Using sociology as a framework for her projects, Daniels is interested in the relationship between ideas like 'identity' and 'self'. "Elf Dalia" is a photo book that tells the story of the people that live in the remote Swedish valley of Älvdalen. Most of its inhabitants still speak Elfdalian, an ancient language with strong links to the Viking's Old Norse. How this language has managed to persist to this day is an unresolved mystery for many scientists, since the community has never been fully isolated from the rest of the world Daniels combines her own photographs taken from 2011 to 2017 with curious pictures from a local archive amassed by a man named Tenn Lars Persson (1878 -1938), a local inventor, mechanic and photographer. The region's geographical isolation, delineated by forest, mountains and lakes, sits at the core of "Elf Dalia", exploring how the myth and ritual of the past intertwines with modern day life. Karianne Bueno explores utopian places that are unaffected by the human urge for makability. Bueno met Doug in 2010 when she stayed at his campsite in the rainforest of Vancouver Island, Canada where he had moved more than forty-five years ago. Doug, then just 20 years old, had built his house on the foundations of a pioneer house and worked as a carpenter on a military base in the nearby village Holberg. When the base closed after the Cold War and the buildings and remains would be burned, Doug decided to save what he could save. Collection trucks full of small structures, books, photographs and utensils, he started the San Josef Heritage Park and Campground. Everywhere on his primitive camping you will find remains of the radar base built to protect Canada and the U.S. from a potential Russian attack. Doug is getting old, and he is losing the battle against the elements. When he is gone, so is the past that he is trying to hold on to. "Doug's Cabin" is Bueno's attempt to save some of Dougs memories, and simultaneously asks the question; what happens after we are gone?

Samuel Fosso, Ilvy Njiokiktjien, Lebohang Tlali and Theo Derksen are the guests of our FOTODOK Book Club on 3 October. And of course photographer and Book Club host Rob Hornstra always has more surprises for the Book Club visitors during the evening itself. It will be an evening about selfportraits and identity, about the generation in South-Africa born after the end of apartheid in 1994, about the impact of a photo book published in 1991 on the minerstown Welkom in South Africa on South-African photographer Debohang Tlali and about how on many place in the world people are trying to make their outdoor surroundings more beautiful by installing big photos. Samuel Fosso will talk about his upcoming books: "Autoportrait" and "SixSixSix". Ilvy Njiokiktjien will introduce her book "Born Free" that was awarded this week in the PDN Photo Annual 2019. Theo Derksen will talk about his book "Disneyfication". His exhibition on "Disneyfication" can be seen until 12 October at the Pennings Foundation in Eindhoven. South-African photographer Lebohang Tlali will share how a book of Ad van Denderen about his hometown Welkom changed his life and resulted in a new book and exhibition "Welkom Today".

FOTODOK Book Club is a live talk show conceived by FOTODOK in collaboration with a photographer and photo-book aficionado Rob Hornstra. For five years, Hornstra has been interviewing the makers of photo books - photographers, designers and publishers. On the 12th of December 2019, FOTODOK Book Club celebrates its 20th anniversary and introduces a new moderator joining the project - the editor-in-chief of De Correspondent Sterre Sprengers. Starting from this edition and further in 2020, Hornstra and Sprengers will moderate the Fotodok Book Club in turns. In 2012, Cristina de Middel published "The Afronauts" - a photo book about the Zambian space program in South Africa. In July 2019, the book has been produced in the 3d edition. Lucas Leffler's recent book "Silver Creek" (published by The Eriskay Connection) is inspired by a story of Gevaert, the Belgium factory for analogue film rolls, and its employee who extracted half a ton of silver annually from the waste that the factory discharged into the Grensbeek. In the photo book "Ode aan de kleinste musea van Nederland" (published by Lecturis), photographer Maartje ter Horst dedicates an ode to the smallest museums of the Netherlands and people who work there. For the recently published by Lecturis "New Dutch Views", Marwan Bassiouni traveled through polders, along industrial sites, villages, inner cities and suburbs to photograph the Dutch landscape from the mosque. Artist Ruben Lundgren will join us through an online broadcasting from China and will spotlight three photo books published in the passing 2019.

Photographer and photo-book enthusiast Rob Hornstra will once again be the talk show host of the FOTODOK Book Club and will be on stage talking to various photographers about the story behind their latest project and about the choices they make when translating this into a photo book. Expect compelling content with the occasional critical note. Paolo Woods blends photography with investigative journalism. In 2003, he published the book "Un monde de Brut" (A Crude World), where he tackles the subject of the oil industry, covering the industry in twelve countries. Other subjects on which he published books were the western involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq ("American Chaos", 2004), the rise of Chinese influence in Africa ("Chinafrica", 2008) and the Iranian society through intimate portraits (Walk on my Eyes, 2010). He has received various prizes, including two World Press Photo Awards. Marina Caneve is a photographer working within an interdisciplinary approach. In her work Caneve addresses the issues of vulnerability, the environmental, social and cultural, and the construction of knowledge through the visual arts. Projects of her are "Are They Rocks or Clouds", in which she addresses the history of hydrogeological events in the Dolomite mountains, "Bridges Are Beautiful", a project about freedom and movement, and "The Shape of Water Vanishes in Water", a series of photographs set in a sandy, grassy Cavallino Treporti, in which she asks us to think about the future of these kinds of environments. Jack Latham is a documentary photographer. His books include "A Pink Flamingo", made along the route of the Oregon Trail in the USA at a time of national financial hardship, and "Sugar Paper Theories" about the Reykjavik Confessions in Iceland - a case of memory distrust syndrome in which six people confessed to murders they did not commit. His latest project, "Parliament of Owls", focuses on Bohemian Grove, a private gentlemen's club in Northern California and the dangers of not providing context to the public.

A live talk show in which photographer and photo-book enthusiast Rob Hornstra talks with photographers, designers and publishers on stage. (Inter)national guests tell the story behind their latest project and the choices they made in the realisation of their publication. Lively conversations with the occasional critical note guaranteed. The guests at the 22nd FOTODOK Book Club are: Alec Soth, Bertien van Manen and Sebastian Rogowski.

During this edition, the Dutch Photographer of the Year Jan Dirk van der Burg will be given carte blanche to present his famous photo slideshow. And for those who have not yet seen him at, for example, "De Parade" or in the theatre with Marcel van Roosmalen, this is your chance. The concept of a slide show will be given a new dimension. During the evening, a selection of Jan Dirk's books will be for sale and the publication that FOTODOK made this summer with DOC Magazine will be available for a special price.

The theme of this edition is The Special Dutch Edition. Recently, many special photo books have been published in the Netherlands. And they deserve extra attention in these special times: Thomas Kuijpers - "Hoarder Order", Heleen Peeters - "Horse", Antoinette de Jong and Robert Knoth - "Tree and Soil", Marvel Harris - "Inner Journey", Louisiana van Onna - "Early Ed".

On 12 May, Rob Hornstra and Sterre Sprengers will present the 25th edition of the FOTODOK Book Club in Cloud Nine at TivoliVredenburg. Guests are Alessandra Sanguinetti (via Zoom), Kadir van Lohuizen, Louise Honée and Yara Jimmink. Alessandra Sanguinetti talks about her new book "The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer". In this book, Alessandra Sanguinetti returns to the Argentine countryside to continue her collaboration with Belinda and Guillermina, two cousins who, as girls, were the subject of the first book in her ongoing series, "The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams". In this second instalment, we follow Guillermina and Belinda in their daily lives between the ages of 14 and 24. In his latest book, "After Us the Deluge", Kadir van Lohuizen shows the consequences of rising sea levels for mankind. He travelled to seven different regions in the world and recorded the consequences the climate crisis is already having on the people who live there. The book is a disturbing document of our times. For each chapter, an expert from the region in question wrote a contribution about the specific problems in his or her country. This includes the former chairman of FOTODOK, Water Envoy Henk Ovink. Yara Jimmink graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2020 with the exhibition and publication "When summer became winter". The publication is on the shortlist for the Kassel Dummy Award 2020. The family archive of her grandparents' migration from New Guinea to the Netherlands in 1961 with their six-year-old daughter, Jimmink's mother, formed the starting point of "When summer became winter". Yara combines family photos, portraits, photos of flowers and plants and sound recordings in an associative way. Louise Honée travelled to McDowell County in West Virginia for her project "We love where we live". This once prosperous centre of coal mining in the United States has been transformed into a hopeless place with little prospect of better times. Honée searched for the beauty behind the misery and was particularly interested in the new generation that is growing up in a social context in which prosperity has turned to poverty.

The FOTODOK Book Club is the place to hear stories from photo books. In this live talk show, photographer and photo-book enthusiast Rob Hornstra and creative editor-in-chief of De Correspondent Sterre Sprengers interview the storytellers - photographers, designers and publishers. They share extraordinary stories on a variety of subjects. From the people of Tuindorp Oostzaan by photographer Raimond Wouda ("Polder VIII", Tuindorp Oostzaan, Amsterdam 1920-2020), men with eating disorders portrayed by Mafalda Rakos ("A Story to Tell") to 50 years of special encounters by Bertien van Manen ("Archive").

The FOTODOK Book Club is the podium for stories from photo books. In this Paris Edition live talkshow, photographer and photo-book lover Rob Hornstra interviews the storytellers - photographers, designers and publishers. They share special stories on a variety of subjects from their latest photo books. During this 27th edition, the Book Club wil be organized for the first time outside the Netherlands in Atelier Néerlandais in Paris where the FOTODOK exhibition Earthlings can be seen. Rob Hornstra will talk to Bieke Depoorter, Rahim Fortune and Rafal Milach about their latest publications. In October 2017, Bieke Depoorter met Agata in a strip club in Paris. Over the next three years, Bieke and Agata collaborated intensely, creating a small alternative universe that served as a container for them to explore questions they each had regarding identity, performance, and representation. The result is a project that never lands on any sort of conclusive truth, instead highlighting the slippery nature of truth in situations where power, responsibility, and control are in a constant state of flux. This book's design is, like the dynamic it examines, complex and constantly shifting. Its contents are laid out chronologically, and the book is Japanese bound, with perforations on the fold. This leaves the reader with the choice of whether to tear open the pages and see a hidden story; alternative narratives, versions of truth that do not fit squarely with the truth the photographer originally presents. Rahim Fortune's father appears in only one photograph in "I can't stand to see you cry", but he is the book's animating presence. The portrait shows the older man propped up in bed, with an oxygen tube over his nose, gripping his son's hand, which reaches out from behind the camera. Fortune took it last spring, when he returned from Brooklyn, where he lives, to his home town of Kyle, Texas, outside of Austin, to help care for his father in the final months of his battle against A.L.S. Fortune, who is twenty-seven, found himself in the new role of caretaker, as the covid-19 pandemic was accelerating and protests against police killings were spreading across the country. Between shifts at his father's bedside, he took his camera into the streets of a city that he knew intimately but which he now set about photographing with a new urgency born of his dad's illness. Since 2019, Milach, together with sixteen fellow photographers, has been a co-creator of the "Archive of Public Protests" (APP), a platform for gathering documentation of social actions and grassroots initiatives that have opposed political decisions executed in violation of principles of democracy and human rights. "Strike" is a piece of this archive. "Strike" is a visual record of the protests that began across Poland on October 22, 2020, and which persisted in various forms over the ensuing months. Strike examines one of the most significant formation processes contemporary Polish society has experienced.

The FOTODOK Book Club is the place to be for stories from photo books. In this live talk show, photographer and photo-book enthusiast Rob Hornstra and creative editor-in-chief of De Correspondent, Sterre Sprengers, interview the storytellers - photographers, designers and publishers. They share with you extraordinary stories on a variety of subjects. In the 28th edition, Thomas Dworzak will come to Utrecht to talk about his latest project, "The Bridge". Wiosna van Bon will talk about her photo book "Family Strangers".

The FOTODOK Book Club is the place to be for stories from photo books. In this live talk show, photographer Rob Hornstra and creative editor-in-chief of De Correspondent, Sterre Sprengers, interview the storytellers - photographers, designers and publishers. They share special stories with you on a variety of subjects. In this edition, we are honoured to welcome Mohamed Bourouissa to Utrecht to talk about his photo book "Périphérique", published by Loose Joints. Between 2005 and 2008, Bourouissa documented the social unrest in the suburbs of Paris. The photos appear documentary and spontaneous, but are carefully staged images of his friends and acquaintances in everyday situations that Mohamed intensifies through fiction and staging. A new version was released last December that looks back at the original context of the work by means of two new commissioned texts by Taous R. Dahmani and Clément Chéroux. In addition, it contains more than sixty pages of previously unseen preparatory photographs that show how Mohamed's meticulous process of observation, preparation and collaboration with his subjects shaped this oeuvre. In addition to Mohamed, Jan Banning will also be a guest to talk about his photo book "The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case". A fascinating story about Christina Boyer (1969, Columbus, Ohio) and the justice system in the United States. Christina was convicted of murdering her daughter Amber. After his investigation, Jan Banning drew the following conclusion: there is no evidence of Christina's guilt; and her conviction is the result of a plea bargain that she decided on out of fear, due to the minimal defence provided by her public defender.

This edition is a special one. Since 24 February, FOTODOK has been closely monitoring the news surrounding the horrific events in Ukraine. We are also constantly thinking about what we as an organisation could and should do. The influence of images is becoming increasingly important in these times, and this becomes even more apparent in wars. There are many images that paint the wrong picture. That is why we have invited photographers to this FOTODOK Book Club who use special photo books to tell stories that need to be heard, especially now. Jérôme Sessini will talk about his photo book "Inner Disorder: Ukraine 2014-2017". The photos and text in this book were taken during the most intense moments and the lowest points of a war characterised by life, death, boredom and silence. The immediacy of the events between 2014 and 2017 gives the reader no respite, as the recognisability of the faces blatantly illustrates the banality of war. And yet it transcends the context to produce a universal message. Our second guest is Mark Neville, a British artist who is on the shortlist for the Deutsche Börse Photographu Foundation Prize 2020. The topic of our conversation is his book "Stop Tanks with Books". He moved from London to Kiev, Ukraine in 2020 to create this book. He created the book before the Russian invasion of February 2022 in an attempt to gain Western support for Ukraine's struggle for independence. Four days before the invasion, he sent 750 copies to relevant politicians, diplomats, celebrities and anyone who could help prevent the war. Donald Weber and Alexander Chekmenev will tell us more about "Passport" on 12 April. The book came about because Alexander Chekmenev was one of the photographers called in by the social services in Luhansk in 1994-95 to take passport photos of the elderly or sick who could not afford to pay a photographer themselves. During this national campaign he went door to door, ending up at people's homes and coming face to face with the distressing situations many of these people found themselves in. As difficult as he found it to capture this, it allows him to show the world what happens to people who have nothing. Our final guest is Nicole Segers, who tells us more about her book "Blood and Honey: Encounters at the Balkan Border". This book is about unity and separation. About the sobering reality of nationalism in practice. About hope and disappointment, passion and lethargy. About daily concerns and geopolitical forces. About the role of the past in the present. About the fragmentation of a region, a danger that also threatens societies elsewhere in Europe. She tells us more about her journey and the realisation of this beautiful book where language and images come together.

The FOTODOK Book Club is the place to hear stories from photo books. In this live talk show, photographer and photo-book enthusiast Rob Hornstra and creative editor-in-chief of De Correspondent, Sterre Sprengers, interview the storytellers - photographers, designers and publishers. They share with you extraordinary stories on a variety of subjects. Prins de Vos is a photographer and filmmaker from Amsterdam. Themes in his work are intimacy, sexuality and gender and other identity issues. Since 2014, Prins has been working on a photo series about Levi from Amsterdam. When he started, Prins did not know that he would follow Levi for 7 years. Levi is an artist, poet and trans man. Prins portrayed him at the important moments in his life. The title of the series, "Boys do cry", is taken from the tattoo Levi has on his stomach. It is an important phrase. Levi dared to be extremely vulnerable for the photos, and Prins and Levi want to use the series to break the taboo on male vulnerability. Because boys do cry. An unfiltered and personal account of Xylella, the plant epidemic threatening Europe. Piccinni and Caimi's book "Fastidiosa" is the result of the plight of local farmers and the catastrophic destruction of the environment in Puglia, southern Italy, which the two photographers have documented over a period of six years. Working under the project title "This Land is My Land", the duo stood alongside farmers when they were forced to cut down historic olive trees to prevent the spread of the infectious disease to Northern Europe. They were the witnesses to the destruction of their history, culture and livelihood. Millions of trees have already been cut down and there is still no known cure for the disease. "Fastidiosa" offers a mix of black-and-white analogue portraits and landscapes, colour images emphasising scientific research and experimental efforts, archive photos and stories from the region's inhabitants. Photojournalist and filmmaker Ed Kashi has been in the business for 40 years. The collection of photos in "Abandoned moments, a love letter to photography", taken over a period of 40 years, reveals imprecise glimpses of passing events filled with hectic energy - the chaos of everyday life. They preserve moments that can never again take place in exactly the same time and space. In contrast to his journalistic approach of deep personal connection and sharp observation, this work is about capturing the untamed energy of a moment with abandon. "I Just Wanna Surf" captures the friction of finding one's identity and community during the pandemic and post-George Floyd era in a sport dominated by white men. Growing up in one of the only mixed-race Black families in a small Orange County beach town, Angotti-Jones reflects on how her early relationship with the ocean and Californian surf culture became intertwined with her identity as a Black woman. In a mix of photo book, zine, and diary, Angotti-Jones challenges the traditional surfing narrative by documenting Black women and non-binary surfers living the surfing lifestyle inspired by 1990s and early 2000s surf culture, while making it their own. The images juxtapose the joy of friendship and the refuge found in the the ocean's wilderness with the underlying racial tensions at the core of the Black American experience. With sensitivity and vulnerability, her text explores her experience with depression and the sense of peace brought by riding waves.