Editing Challenge | Wolfgang Zurborn vs. Moritz Neumüller

On December 16th, 2022, Photo book expert Wolfgang Zurborn competes against Moritz Neumüller ('The Curatorship', Barcelona) to create a book dummy from the visual material "Beyond the wild" by Lu Mazen. In the Zoom Talk, the experts present their approach and discuss their results with the audience*. Finally, Lu evaluates the book dummies. If you've always wanted to look over the shoulder of experts editing photo books, you'll get an insight into the art of the photo book.

Wolfgang Zurborn surprises us this time as an advocate of the text in the book, while Moritz Neumüller amazes us with a concept that connects "Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt" with the world of the photo book. Why it doesn't help to want to mean something and why Wolfgang prefers to do the editing alone? When Moritz will involve the photographer and designer in the process again? All that and much more in this episode!

Recording

Watch on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deutschefotografischeakademie

Watch on YouTube (with generated subtitles): https://youtu.be/9Dpq5Whar8g

Bookdummies

Wolfgang Zurborn's design:

https://issuu.com/zurborn/docs/beyond_the_wild-lu_mazen-issuu_ok

About the participants:

Moritz Neumüller is a curator, educator and writer in the field of Photography and New Media, with a special interest in accessibility to the arts. He holds a Master Degree in Art History as well as a PhD degree in Information Management and has worked for several international art institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, PHotoEspaña in Madrid and PhotoIreland in Dublin. He is currently Chief Curator of the Photobook Week Aarhus, Denmark and runs an online resource for visual artists, called The Curator Ship, since 2010.

Wolfgang Zurborn is a DFA board member and founder of the Cologne Lichtblick School. He is internationally known for his photo book workshops.

Lu Mazen: 'I am a visual artist from Munich, Germany. My art incorporates themes of place and environment, identity and memory, expressed in photography and video. After international studies, I have exhibited in international art festivals, institutions and galleries and have won artistic prices, such as Px3, Arte Laguna, Lynx or South West German Price. My hand-made book „False Moons“ was a finalist in the 2020 9th Rendez-Vous-Images festival in France. Selections of my photos were published in magazines, newspaper and books. For details on exhibitions: www.lumazen.de. After university and travels in Europe, North America and Asia, I attended master classes at ICP, Magnum and at the Salzburg Summer Academy. Teachers include Eli Cortinas, Josef Schulz, Oded Wagenstein and Sonja Braas. I recently completed a master class in Paris with Jean-Christian Bourcat, Nicolas Havette and Jane Evelyn Atwood. In 2021, I got accepted to a residency with the School of Visual Arts in New York and a residency with the WorkShowGrow School in UK.

'Beyond the wild', 2020 to 2022: In recent years, after life abroad in big cities, I have returned to my roots: Rural places, where I have personal ties, where I grew up. I visit other villages, there I am an outsider and I connect by taking photographs. The project started with a question: What is the reality of country life today - beyond glossy magazines with pretty gardens, beyond hearty recipes or farming sim games in the metaverse? Come on a voyage of discovery with me - look at architecture, people, landscapes and the peculiarities of daily life. Discover the transitory and what is overlooked. I question the past and future of the rural, its fundamental transformation that creates environmental and sustainability issues. In the age of anthropocene, some villages are deserted, others morph into suburbia. This is relevant to all of us, as our survival depends on the food produced around villages. My approach is the one of a researching artist, an ethnographer, documenting what is endangered and transformed. My photos carry patina, evoking things past. Estrangement becomes visible – I look at the rural as if I had never seen it before. That allows me to discover the unseen, the mundane and the humorous side of rural life. The result is a personal photo project taken over several years that I will turn into a book.'