Silvia Bordini on the Photobook as Autonomous Art Form

Silvia Bordini's book 'Photobook. L'immagine di un'immagine' (Postmediabooks, 2020) explores the photobook as a hybrid, autonomous art form. In an interview with Valentina Tanni, Bordini discusses the photobook's history, from Anna Atkins' 1843 cianotype album 'Algae' to contemporary digital iterations. She defines the photobook not as a mere container for photographs but as a space of experimentation where photographer, designer, editor, collectors, and market converge. Bordini traces the photobook's international rise since the 1990s and its growing presence in Italy through small publishers, alternative bookstores, research centers, and festivals. She highlights the challenge of exhibiting photobooks, which require physical handling, citing the 2017 Barcelona exhibition 'Fenomeno Photobook' that used interactive digital displays alongside physical volumes. Bordini also addresses the photobook's online existence, noting its dematerialization into e-books and PDFs, while emphasizing that digital technologies now underpin both production and distribution. The book costs €16.90 and is published by Postmediabooks.