First published in The Photobook Review #13, Aperture, Sept. 2017. Delphine Bedel’s diverse practice brings together several disciplines: she is an artist, curator, educator, art director and publisher. Bedel has contributed to the emergence of a new publishing culture that splices photography, art, and design, and empowers a new generation…

The history of photobooks and artists’ books is documented, collected, exhibited and discussed. How were the contributions and legacy of women to print culture overlooked for so long? * — The birth of photography took place in a highly competitive and nationalistic context, with its inventors fighting for licenses and commercial gain, contesting court cases to decide whether photography was art, and asserting its role in the colonial process. Although the history of photography and of photobooks and artists’ books…

With ‘Stubborn Cactus’, Delphine Bedel, artist and publisher, proposes a singular herbarium. A subjective inventory of plants in a botanical garden in Amsterdam, this work balances between classification and resistance. — Caroline Châtelet: What made you document this botanical garden? Delphine Bedel: The Netherlands has a tradition of academic botanical gardens dating back to 1590. Built within the university’s compound, they were part of the faculty of biology. The aim of these gardens was the study of plants for educational purposes, scientific research, therapeutic and commercial applications. Founded in 1967…

‘One day I’d like to see artists’ books ensconced in supermarkets, drugstores and airports and, not incidentally, to see artists to be able to profit economically from broad communication rather than from the lack of it.’ (Lippard, 1977) — What is a book? ‘What is a book?’ Confronted with the illegal publishing of his books, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote a brief text in the Metaphysics of Morals 2, defining a book (Kant, 1792). Kant’s definition was unusual for the time (Pozzo, 2006). It is a manufacturing product granting the buyer with…

Delphine Bedel–the founder of META/BOOKS–talks about the photobook’s transition into the digital realm. Daria Tuminas interviewed her for Unseen. — Unseen: You founded META/BOOKS, a publishing house and research platform. What was your motivation? Delphine Bedel: I founded my first publishing project in 2009 to promote a new generation of photographers, artists and designers. It started as an education project, a publishing house and research platform. I work at the intersection of visual culture and technology. Interested in digital publishing, I founded META/BOOKS in…