Best Antipodean Photobooks of 2020 Announcement
The 2020 Best Antipodean Photobooks
Compiled by Doug Spowart & Victoria Cooper for The Antipodean Photobook website, March 2020
The 2020 Best Antipodean Photobooks are to be announced at THE MELBOURNE ART BOOK FAIR 27 MARCH 2021.
Includes Books By: Suzanne Phoenix, Tim Page, Julia Booth, Blanche Violet Maher, Peter Milne, Diane Stoppard, Allan McDonald, Jane Ussher, Andrew Chapman, Jaime Murcia, Noel Butcher, Melanie Faith Dove, Erin Jonasson, Harvey Benge, Alex Frayne, Nicholas Walton-Healey, Jon Carapiet, Haruhiko Sameshima and Stu Sontier.
Selected ANZ Student Photobooks of 2020 will also be announced - link
About the awards
“ The photobook makers of New Zealand and Australia (the Antipodes) have limited opportunity to penetrate the northern hemisphere recognition space. Hence this first list of THE BEST ANTIPODEAN PHOTOBOOKS for 2020 has been prepared.
This list represents a selection of books published in Australia and New Zealand in the year of the Pandemic 2020. Though many aspects of the publishing world were significantly disrupted causing several books to be held over to 2021 some intrepid and active photobook authors and publishers still came through with a variety of photobooks.
While the worldwide end of year crop of Best Photobook lists are usually replete with American/Euro/Japan centric publishers, this list is shamelessly biased towards Australian and New Zealand books. It presents the variety of book products from personal limited edition self-published projects to large volume trade books.
Please take a look – read the commentaries and visit the links to the larger stories of these books and the photographers, designers and publishers who made them.
And, as one of our nominators Mary Macpherson states, ‘Best Books lists should be seen as the opinion of individuals, based on what they’ve seen and prefer, rather than final verdicts on worth”.
Doug Spowart
Jane Ussher’s Nature - Stilled book
BOOK TITLE: NATURE – STILLED
Authors: Jane Ussher
Publisher: Te Papa Press
Designer: Arch MacDonnell, Inhouse. Type by Alistair McCready, Inhouse
Description: Hardback, quarter-bound with Wibalin Buckram, gold foil on title, and two ribbon markers in different shades of green, portrait, 25 x 20.2 cm, 368 pages
Printed: Everbest Printing Investment Ltd, China
First Edition:
ISBN: 978-0-9951136-9-5
Price NZD$ 70.00
ABSTRACT: Award-winning photographer Jane Ussher spent several weeks in Te Papa’s natural history collection storage areas shooting this outstanding book… Stunningly photographed and beautifully designed, its 157 images capture the glory of the insect, fish, mollusc and botanical specimens that represent the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa’s vast and scientifically important collections. Te Papa’s expert curators and collections managers have written the short texts about each natural history object.