Larry Towell

In 2012, the Eastman Kodak Company declared bankruptcy. That same year, a group of ten photographers from Magnum Photos—Jim Goldberg, Bruce Gilden, Susan Meiselas, Martin Parr, Paolo Pellegrin, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Alec Soth, Larry Towell, Alex Webb, and Donovan Wylie, plus Chien-Chi Chang, who documented the process in audio and video—established a temporary base of operations in Rochester, New York, former home to the once-dominant manufacturer of photographic film. Their goal: to create both a documentary archive of that city’s culture and landscape, and a photo-based experience engaging its residents; and to investigate a community of picture-makers comprised not only of Eastman Kodak, but also the Visual Studies Workshop, George Eastman House, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the citizens of Rochester. Over the course of almost three weeks, photographers, students, faculty, and residents worked together to create a visual record of the city and its people at a time of significant transition. Nathan Lyons, founding director of the Visual Studies Workshop, describes the result as “not only a major documentary project, but a celebration of photography within the city that had for years been a center of imaging technologies.” Upon arrival in Rochester, Martin Parr gave each photographer the task of assembling one hundred photographs to form the basis of an archive. Rochester 585/716 presents all one thousand images, together with commentary by poets Cornelius Eady and Marie Howe, art historian and photo theorist Laura Wexler, and photographer and educator Nathan Lyons. Five sets of the images were printed as a portfolio, each of which now resides in major private and public collections. Two artist proof sets were also created, one of which will be dispersed via the one thousand copies of this publication. Each individual copy contains a single loose print, selected at random from this additional set.

The History War is a book of photographs, collages andephemera beginning with a timeline that starts in the 5thcentury.It's six chapters document the Maidan uprising, theChernobyl wasteland where Soviets began to lose faith inthe system, the eastern Donbass of neglected coal minersand de-occupied ruins, an embed with the Ukrainian Army, the separatists, and finally the Russian invasion of Ukraineincluding crimes against humanity in Bucha.This project is an important testament to a politicalcrisis that will shape international relations and reverberatethrough the decades to come. It also challenges a worldoversaturated with news pictures.

Larry Towell first encountered the Mennonites near his home in Ontario, Canada, and his friendship with them gained him unique access to their communities. Rather than compromise their way of life, Mennonites have continually been forced to migrate around the world to maintain their freedom to live as they choose. Towell photographed Mennonites in Canada and Mexico for over ten years, and his own texts tell in detail his experiences with their communities: the harshness and poverty of their rural existence, the disciplines and contradictions of their religion, their hunger for land and work, and the constant struggle to keep the modern world at bay. This second edition, reedited and re-sequenced includes forty new images from the photographer’s archive.

For thirty years, Afghanistan has known only war. Renowned Magnum photographer Larry Towell presents a moving and in-depth look at the country, whose citizens and landscapes are affected by conflict on a daily basis. Towell, a veteran conflict reporter, has also worked in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico, Palestine, and Israel. This work was shot between 2008 and 2011, offering a tour de force examination of survival, exile, loss, and recuperation. Here is the war seen from a variety of perspectives—from military camps to domestic interiors—and depicting U.S. and British soldiers, landmine victims, ordinary Afghan citizens, cityscapes, recreation, addiction, and weaponry, as well as a rare series of Taliban portraits. The limited-edition book presents a facsimile of the photographer’s original artist maquette, complete with his handwritten notes and stories, items he collected in the field, and over 350 images, including powerful collages made by Towell. A true art object, this book conveys the complexity of the conflict, which has roots that go deep into historical and tribal grievances. Beautifully produced in a limited edition, this extraordinary object offers an important historical document on present-day Afghanistan seen through its social, political, and environmental landscapes.