TALKING BOOKS Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s–'90s Britain mit Joy Gregory und Cristina Piza

In the organizer's words:

With Joy Gregory . Artist, Editor, Author and Cristina Piza . Artist
Moderated by Cale Garrido . Guest Curator

Location Café C/O Berlin x Barkin'Kitchen
Language English

Freeadmission / First come, first serve

In the fourth edition of TALKING BOOKS, artist, editor, researcher, author and photography scholar Joy Gregory will present her book Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s-90s Britain, published by MACK/Autograph in 2024. The anthology brings together for the first time the groundbreaking work of Black women photographers in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. Comprising both documentary and conceptual approaches, the publication explores significant, yet often overlooked, chapters in the history of photography.

In conversation with Joy Gregory, we reflect on the themes of the publication - including photography as a medium of self-empowerment and the ways in which the women photographers featured in the book explored and expanded the boundaries of the medium. The book launch takes place on the occasion of the exhibitions A World in Common . Contemporary African Photography and Silvia Rosi . Protectorate, which aims to embed the voices and practices of the artists in Shining Lights in a global dialog about identity, photography and culture.

Joy Gregory is an award-winning artist specializing in photography, whose work explores themes of identity politics and beauty culture. She holds degrees from Manchester Polytechnic (Manchester Metropolitan University) and the Royal College of Art, has been exhibited in numerous institutions in the UK and internationally and has participated in biennials and festivals. Her work is held in prestigious collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the UK Government Art Collection, the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane and Yale University. Gregory is the editor of Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s-90s Britain (published by MACK/Autograph in 2024).

Cristina Piza, born in Costa Rica in 1963, is a photographer based in Berlin. She studied communication sciences in Mexico City and photography in the United Kingdom and Italy. She earned a Master of Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute on a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1992, she founded a darkroom collective in Neukölln (Berlin) and worked as a freelance photographer for various European publications. Her most important projects include Habana (1993), Havana Dreams (1995) and Rumba (1996); Boys in the Park (1999); Sunday Best (2000); and Memories of a Professional Foreigner (2003). Piza has exhibited internationally and received awards such as the Olympus Fashion Award and the Eddie Adams Fellowship for Photojournalism.