The Messy Truth - Conversations on Photography

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Cait Opperman about her creative journey and her new full service production company Flowers. Born from her desire for greater autonomy and more direct and meaningful collaboration with her clients, Cait is creating a new model beyond the  traditional photographer and agent dynamic. While she had a hunch that building Flowers would offer a more expansive way of working with less compromise, Cait also found it rekindled her personal connection to creativity in dynamic and unexpected ways. Cait Oppermann is a New York-based photographer, director and entrepreneur working in the fine art, commercial and editorial sectors and beyond. After receiving her BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute, Cait has built a successful career working with clients including Nike, Meta, Rapha, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, Volvo and On Running. In 2023, Cait launched FLOWERS, a cross-disciplinary creative studio and full-service production company based in New York, working across the globe.Follow Cait @caitoppermann & @flowersfullservice & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Sophie Hackett, the photography curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto about the power of vernacular photography. We discuss her recent book and exhibition on Casa Susana - The Story of the First Trans Network in the United States 1959-1968. These incredibly inspiring photographs trace an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men who found refuge in a house in the Catskills region of New York. The house, known as Casa Susanna, provided a safe place to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed - dressed as and living as women without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalised for their self-expression. This book opens up that now-lost world with a multifaceted collection of vernacular photographs - mostly discovered by chance in a New York flea market in 2004. During Sophie Hackett’s tenure at the Art Gallery of Ontario she has curated numerous exhibitions and collection reinstallation's, written and contributed to countless publications, participated on international juries and maintained an active academic profile. She is currently a faculty member in Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master’s degree program in Film + Photography, and was a 2017 Fellow with the Center for Curatorial Leadership. Hackett’s area of specialty is 19th and 20th century vernacular photography.Follow Sophie @hackettse & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Photographer Jesse Glazzard renowned for making striking and intimate portraits anchored in his everyday life and wider community. Alongside his commercial and editorial work, Jesse’s passion projects immerse us in marginal, lesser-known worlds, such as a Trans boxing gyms, Queer camping and underground club nights. His photographs are informed by care and compassion and the impetus of his practice is on the importance of documentation, without necessarily showing the work right away. There is a sense of preserving his community, in a particular moment of history. Jesse Glazzard Is a Photographer from West Yorkshire, based in London. He has worked with clients including YSL, SSENSE, Calvin Klien, Adidas, Coach, Facebook, Death Jam, Sony Music as well publications including British Vogue, Interview magazine, GQ, Altered States, Perfect Magazine, Cultured Mag and The Face.Mentioned in the episode:Diamond Coating on a Blade - Jesse Glazzard for The FaceWinter on Fire documentaryFollow Jesse @jesse_glazzard & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher chats to designer and educator Brian Paul Lamotte about  reimagining the possibilities of form, production and distribution in art and photobooks. In a deep dive into the book making process we open up a conversation about the changing scope of publishing, the transformative experience of being entangled with an artist and their intentions and ultimately design as a form of collaboration. Brian Paul Lamotte (b. 1984, San Francisco, USA) is an independent graphic designer & publisher specializing in art and photography books. Educated in graphic design at London’s Central St. Martins, he established his creative practice in New York and is currently based between Milano and Zürich. His design approach utilizes extensive visual and production research paired with image-led solutions and minimal typography. His publishing practice is driven by exploration and experimentation with the book form, production methods and models of distribution. He has designed and produced various books and projects for select publishers and clients including Aperture Foundation, Dashwood Books, Edition Patrick Frey, Fondation Louis Vuitton, GOST Books, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, Images Vevey, Ithaca Image Text Press, Jiazazhi, MAST Foundation, Meta/Books, MoMA, Pro Helvetia, Rizzoli,SPBH Editions and Twin Palms Publishers.Follow Brian on Instagram @brianpaullamotte Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe five stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nathaniel Tonelli, known by their monika Female Pentimento, has cultivated a vast audience on social media in awe of their celestial images which both advocate for climate awareness while traversing the space between heaven and earth, life and death, spirituality and science fiction. While Nathaniel’s work feels provocative and exciting, it’s their approach to designing a practice that prioritizes care, independence and anonymity that I wanted to dig into with them during this episode. Together we talk about crafting a creative practice, affirmations, independence and the importance of finding a methodology that works for the individual. You can order Nathaniel’s photobook Inner Nature here published by Broccoli Press.Nathaniel Tonelli is an artist and art director whose work bridges photography with speculative storytelling, exploring themes of mysticism, deep ecology, and humanity’s imprint on nature. Through these lenses, Nathaniel considers the interwoven futures of our ecosystems and spiritual lives. Rooted in vibrant experimentation, their work is guided by gratitude, reverence, and mindfulness.Follow Nathaniel on Instagram @Female Pentimento Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE rate and review on Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher welcomes back Charlie Engman to talk about Cursed, his new book of AI Images. Cursed stands as a testament to Charlie’s visionary role in the rapidly evolving and highly contentious field of AI, offering an immersive exploration of uncharted artistic territories and proposing a new paradigm for the future and possibilities of photography. During their roving conversation, AI Images act as a way to not just reflect upon Charlie’s work but also to interrogate the discourse around value, provenance, creativity and economics as well as other pressing issues which get very little attention. Charlie Engman is a Brooklyn-based photographer, director, and art director whose work pushes the limits of traditional image making, simultaneously principled and irreverent — imbued with both the weird and wonderful. He has exhibited work globally and made four books. His work has been featured across AnOther Magazine, Dazed, Garage, POP, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, among other publications. His commercial clients include Prada, Marni, Adidas, Hermès, Kenzo, Nike, Vivienne Westwood, and Stella McCartney. Charlie has also worked as Art Director at Collina Strada since 2019 — continuously pushing the creative & conceptual boundaries of the contemporary, sustainable brand.You can order Cursed  and Hello Chaos, a love story over at Mack. Follow Charlie on Instagram @charlieengman Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE rate and review on Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to curator Alona Pardo about her rich practice rooted in multiplicity. Alona is one of those curators who knows how to truly capture the imagination of the audience, planting ideas in our minds that reverberate long after we have left her exhibitions. During the conversation, Alona talks about her process, interests and how her curatorial practice has evolved over time. Alona Pardo is Head of Programmes at the Arts Council Collection, UK, and was until recently a curator at Barbican Art Gallery in London for 15 years. With a focus on photography and film, she has curated numerous exhibitions including most recently RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology (2023); Noemie Goudal: Phoenix (2022) as part of Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles; Masculinities: Liberation through Photography (2020); Trevor Paglen: From Apple to Anomaly (2019); Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing (2018); Vanessa Winship: And Time Folds (2018); Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins (2018); Richard Mosse: Incoming (2017) and Strange and Familiar: Britain as seen by International Photographers (with Martin Parr; 2016). She has a particular interest in work that operates at the intersection of gender, social and environmental justice.Follow Alona on Instagram @alona_pardo Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE rate and review on Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher delves into the unique approach of London-based photographic artist, Laura Pannack. Her practice, which is a blend of experimentation and research, is a deep exploration of the intricate relationship between subject and photographer. The work is rooted in intimate collaborations with individuals and communities, and it constantly pushes the boundaries of what photography can be. Laura Pannack, a London-based photographic artist, has made a significant impact in the field of portraiture and social documentary. Her work has been widely exhibited in prestigious institutions, including The National Portrait Gallery, Somerset House, The Houses of Parliament and the Royal Festival Hall. Her numerous awards, including the World Press Photo Award and the Julia Cameron Award, are a testament to the profound influence of her work. Last year, she published 'Youth Without Age and Life Without Death, with Guest Editions, a response to her need to escape and find adventure in the face of the relentless passage of time.Her artwork has received much acclaim and won numerous awards, including the John Kobal Award, Vic Odden Prize, World Photo Press Awards, Juliet Margaret Cameron Award, and the HSBC Prix de la Photographie prize.Follow Laura on Instagram @laurapannack. Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE rate and review it on the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Jermaine Francis about his multifaceted practice. Jermaine’s work is both deeply personal while also speaking to the intersection of politics and culture in the UK, inviting us to explore the physical and psychological aspects of our space, unpacking themes of history, power, class and race in photography. Jermaine Francis is a London lens Based Artist, his practice works within, Documentary & Portraiture, archive in the format of personal driven Photo projects & Editorials, exploring the issues that arise from our interaction in the everyday environment. He has published two books, Something that seems so Familiar in 2020 & 2021 Rhythms from the Metroplex, & is currently working on a new book with publishers Here Press. The International Centre of Photography NYC, The National Portrait Gallery, Galeriepcp Paris, Hetton Lawn Haus Wien, Vienna Austria 2021,Pembroke JCR galley Oxford, Saatchi Gallery, Centre of British Photography, a nominee for the 2024 Paul Huf foam Award, Awarded the Lightworks /Autograph 2024 Residency, and Cora Oxford Brookes 2024 Residency.Follow Jermaine on Instagram @jermainefrancisstudio Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE rate and review on Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to one of five special episodes recorded live at Peckham 24. In this episode, I speak to Eleonora Agostini about her series, A Study On Waitressing, in which she assembles and re-presents photographs, archival imagery and footage, collage and text as a research method to analyse the theatricality of the everyday and the function of the body as a conduit between observer and observed. Peckham 24 exists to support the photographic community by providing artists with opportunities to exhibit, share and discuss new work - shining a spotlight on cutting-edge contemporary photography.The theme for the 8th edition of the festival was Back to the future, bringing together artists who take moments from the past as inspiration to re-stage, re-imagine or re-think existing narratives. Eleonora is an Italian artist based in London. Her practice shifts between photography, moving image, performance and sculpture, exploring and analysing the difficulties of how human experience is constructed.Her research is strongly connected with the experience of our surroundings and she is interested in finding a possible fracture within our socially constructed rules and the spaces we inhabit. Eleonora refers to the every-day as a space full of potential and possibilities for quests, incorporating ordinary objects and activities within her images to express and navigate its different layers and meanings.Follow Eleonora @eleonoraagostini and  Peckham 24 @peckham24photo and Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to one of five special episodes recorded live at Peckham 24. In this episode, I talk to Bindi Vora about the two projects she presented at Peckham 24, Mountain of Salt and Unravelling which both employ the use of found or archival images. During our conversation we talk about how the absence of images shapes our lives, what it means to work with archival material, the artist as detective, deciphering traces and threads and connecting stories together. How collage can offer something important that language can't reach and the importance of imagining new language to talk about art making. Peckham 24 exists to support the photographic community by providing artists with opportunities to exhibit, share and discuss new work - shining a spotlight on cutting-edge contemporary photography.The theme for the 8th edition of the festival was Back to the future, bringing together artists who take moments from the past as inspiration to re-stage, re-imagine or re-think existing narratives. Bindi Vora is an interdisciplinary artist of Kenyan-Indian heritage, associate lecturer at LCC and senior curator at Autograph, London. She is interested in how ideas of resistance and resilience are shaped by our surroundings, histories and lived experiences. Her practice often combines linguistics and an archive of personal and found photographs procured over the last decade to draw on the intersections between language, culture and their inherent power dynamics.Follow Bindi @bindi_vora & Peckham 24 @peckham24photo & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to one of five special episodes recorded live at Peckham 24. In this episode, I talk to Lina Geoushy about her work Trailblazers, an inquiry into Egypt’s feminist history using self-portraiture, performance, and archival artifacts to reclaim and inscribe a counter-history. Responding to this dissonance in Egypts past and present, Lina has built an archive informed by a feminist impulse, amassing material from popular cultural material and combining that with performative self-portraiture that depicts trailblazing Egyptian feminists in the fields like art, science, law, activism and the military. Peckham 24 exists to support the photographic community by providing artists with opportunities to exhibit, share and discuss new work - shining a spotlight on cutting-edge contemporary photography.The theme for the 8th edition of the festival was Back to the future, bringing together artists who take moments from the past as inspiration to re-stage, re-imagine or re-think existing narratives. Lina Geoushy is a photographer and visual artist working across the spectrum of social documentary and portrait photography. She aims to tell stories that deconstruct and question the public's perception of the prevailing power of patriarchy. Her practice is research-led and her projects are both commissioned and self initiated. Her work largely explores gender politics and women empowerment issues. Follow Lina @linageoushy & Peckham 24 @peckham24photo & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to one of five special episodes recorded live at Peckham 24. In this episode, we celebrate and unpack Åsa Johannesson book Queer Methodology for Photography, diving into her research into new approaches for making, thinking about writing about Queer photography. Through the book, Åsa proposes a new concept of the photographic image that focuses on materiality, voicing concerns beyond representation. Peckham 24 exists to support the photographic community by providing artists with opportunities to exhibit, share and discuss new work - shining a spotlight on cutting-edge contemporary photography.The theme for the 8th edition of the festival was Back to the future, bringing together artists who take moments from the past as inspiration to re-stage, re-imagine or re-think existing narratives. Åsa Johannesson is an artist working across photography, installation, and writing. Her practice concerns the relationship between queerness, representation, and material knowledge production. She has exhibited her work internationally, including at Centrum för fotografi (Stockholm), Queer Britain (London), Landskrona Foto (Landskrona), Dyson Gallery (London) and FutureLab (Shanghai). Åsa’s work has been written about in the books Photography: A Queer History and Museums, Sexuality, and Gender Activism, and the journals Philosophy of Photography, British Journal of Photography, Yes & No, and Zine. She is based in London, UK and her hometown Växjö, Sweden. Follow Asa @asajohannes Peckham 24 @peckham24photo & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to one of five special episodes recorded live at Peckham 24. In this episode, I talk to Alexander Coggin about ‘Mike,’ a fifteen year photographic archive he made about his spouse Micheal. United by a spontaneity and informed by their background in theatre, Mike is a deeply intimate, yet playful exploration of Queer love told through over 300 photographs. Through ‘Mike,’ Alex offers a cross section of a lived history that encompasses the theatricality of the everyday to life's most vulnerable moments.Peckham 24 exists to support the photographic community by providing artists with opportunities to exhibit, share and discuss new work - shining a spotlight on cutting-edge contemporary photography.The theme for the 8th edition of the festival was Back to the future, bringing together artists who take moments from the past as inspiration to re-stage, re-imagine or re-think existing narratives. Alexander Coggin is an American queer photographer and filmmaker living in London who penetrates trends of visual homogeneity with idiosyncratic and uncanny imagery. Raised in the theatre, he is dedicated to bringing the same theatrical and artificial frameworks learned on the stage to the visible everyday. Follow Alexander @alexandercoggin & Peckham 24 @peckham24photo & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Ashleigh Kane taking a peek behind the curtain into the life of an editor and writer. Together we talk about the role of writers within the creative ecosystem, how our relationships with artists start and develop over time, and what it takes to sustain a career in writing. Ashleigh Kane is a writer, editor, creative consultant, art buyer, host, and curator based in London, UK.She is the Arts & Photography Editor-at-Large at Dazed & Confused and previously held the title of Arts & Culture editor from 2014-2020. Ashleigh is also an art buyer and curator for Thursday’s Child and she hosts Art After Hours in collaboration with the EDITION London, a series of monthly art tours that she curates and leads. She’s written for Dazed, i-D, AnOther, The Face, ELEPHANT, HighSnobiety, Crack, Brick, Riposte, foam, Glorious sport, Truth, and AMBUSH universe.Follow Ashleigh on Instagram @ashleighkane  Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe five stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher is in conversation with Photo Editor Emily Keegin about New Rules, a special collaboration with WePresent, the arts platform from WeTransfer. If you're not aware of them, WePresent is a platform that spotlights creatives from around the world and collaborates with artists on one-off special projects. Gem was invited by WePresent to edit New Rules, a guide about photography that speaks to our current moment, and through candid conversations, attempts to explore photography’s unfixed future.New Rules is a group portrait by photographers, curators and editors, many of whom stepped away from the traditional trajectory to embrace an alternative path. They have crafted new strategies, held space for marginalised voices and built new infrastructure, modes of making and blueprints for communing. None of this was easy, but for many of these artists, it was riskier to stay still than not make a change. New Rules includes insights from Charlie Engman, Antwaun Sargent, Sheida Solemani, Quil Lemons, Myriam Boulos, Rhiannon Adam, Elisa Medde and Eve Lyons to name just a few.  It also features Fuck, Marry, Kill Photography, an essay by Emily Keegin about what it means to have a career in photography.Download New Rules here. Follow Emily Keegin @emily_elsie WePresent @wepresent and Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe five stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Carmen Winant about her latest book The Last Safe Abortion. Focusing on the near-fifty-year period in which abortion was legal in the United States (1973–2022), the project  recognises the care, advocacy, and community-building of abortion workers. The photographs themselves are surprisingly regular: women answer the phone, sterilize medical equipment, throw staff birthday parties, offer workshops and schedule appointments. In centering the tender, quotidian, and routine acts that inform this healthcare work, Carmen works to counter the ways anti-choice activists have weaponised photography by proposing a visuality that attends to abortion care. We unpack the evolution of the project and everything it entailed.Carmen Winant is an artist and the Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art at the Ohio State University. Her work utilizes archival and authored photographs to examine feminist care networks, with particular emphasis on intergenerational, multiracial, and sometimes transnational coalition building. Winant's recent projects have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Sculpture Center, Wexner Center of the Arts, ICA Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and el Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo. Winant's artist’s books include My Birth (2018), Notes on Fundamental Joy (2019), and Instructional Photography: Learning How To Live Now (2021); Arrangements, A Brand New End: Survival and Its Pictures (both 2022), and The last safe abortion (2024). Winant is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in photography, a 2020 FCA Artist Honoree and a 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters award recipient. She is also a community organizer, prison educator, and mother to her two children, Carlo and Rafa, shared with her partner, Luke Stettner.If you can, you can support the following orgainsations Carmen mentioned during our conversation:National network of abortion funds https://trustwomen.org/donate/https://feministcenter.org/donate/https://www.preterm.org/monthlyhttps://www.emmagoldman.com/help-out.htmlFollow Carmen  on Instagram @carmen.winant Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe five stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher chats to The Museum of Modern Art Photography Curator Roxana Marcoci. Using some of Roxana’s recent and upcoming exhibitions as jump off points, we explore everything from the ethical responsibility of curatorial practice to the evolving relationship between humans and technology. Roxanna talks about who inspires her, how her approach is guided by deep relationships and informed risk, and her rallying cry to all of us to be bolder in our artistic endeavours.  Roxana Marcoci is the David Dechman Senior Curator and Acting Chief Curator of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art. She holds a PhD in art history, theory, and criticism from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. She is a recipient of the 2011 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship. Marcoci has chaired the Central and Eastern European group (2013-2023) and is currently the inaugural Chair of the West Asia group of MoMA’s Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) program. In 2010 Marcoci co-founded MoMA’s Forums on Contemporary Photography, an experimental platform for free-form critical discussions about the perspectives and scope of image-making among artists, curators, and cultural theorists. Her research engages transnational and diasporic histories of feminist art and new models of solidarity. Marcoci has published over 50 essays on modern and contemporary art and co-authored the three-volume Photography at MoMA (2015/17).Marcoci has curated numerous exhibitions, including LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity (2024); An-My Lê, Between Two Rivers/Giữa hai giòng sông/Entre deux rivières (2023); Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear (2022), which traveled to the Art Gallery ofOntario (2023) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2024); Our Selves: Photographs by Women Artists from Helen Kornblum (2022); Carrie Mae Weems: From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (2020); Louise Lawler: WHY PICTURES NOW (2017); Zoe Leonard:Analogue (2015); From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires: Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola (2015); Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness (2014); The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook (2012); Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII (2012); Sanja Iveković: Sweet Violence (2011); Staging Action:Performance in Photography Since 1960 (2011); Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography (2010); and The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today (2010).Follow Roxana on Instagram @roxanamarcoci Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe five stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher chats to the curator and writer Lou Stoppard about Exteriors, her new exhibition at MEP Paris and a book of the same title published by MACK. The project takes the writing from Annie Ernaux’s Exteriors where Annie endeavoured to ‘describe reality through the eyes of a photographer.” Lou takes this work and asks the question Can you see a text? Can you read a photograph? And pairs Annie’s texts with images from the MEP’s collection to offer viewers a provocation on how to  see the world anew.  In this conversation, we discuss Lou’s approach to exhibition making, her collaboration with Annie, how she thinks about audience and much more. Lou has written for The Financial Times, Aperture, The New York Times and The New Yorker. Her books include a survey of the work of street photographer Shirley Baker, published by Mack in 2019, 'Pools', an exploration of swimming in photography, published by Rizzoli in 2020, and Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography, published by Mack in 2024, to time with an exhibition of the same name at MEP, Paris.Follow Lou on Instagram @loustoppard Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe five stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's minisode, Gem Fletcher speaks to Brea Souders about her latest book Another Online Pervert, which charts her multi-year conversation with a female-programmed chatbot. The book published by Mack, combines excerpts from their conversation with images from her archive. It is highly charged, jumping between the playful and mundane to the dark and ruthless as she unpacks the complex relationship between humans and machines in a provocative publication that invites us to think about the future of our own humanity. The TMT minisodes are short, focused conversations with photographers on books, exhibitions, and special projects, focusing on not just how these endeavours came into being but also what they bring out in us in terms of growth and reflection.Follow Brea on Instagram.  Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review. It really helps like minded people find the podcast. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.