Enjoy a exhibition highlighting historically significant but often overlooked photobooks by women. Presented by the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) in collaboration with 10x10 Photobooks, this exhibition explores photobook history from a female perspective, featuring a diverse range of works created between 1843 and 1999. For more information, contact 305-375-2665. All Ages.
What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women Reading Room is a touring exhibition highlighting historically significant but often overlooked photobooks by women.
The exhibition explores a relatively new field of study—photobook history—where women's contributions have often been under-recognized. While the first major “book-on-books” anthology appeared in 1999 with Fotografía Pública / Photography in Print 1919–1939, photobooks by women have remained underrepresented in these collections despite the field's growth over the past two decades.
The What They Saw Reading Room revisits photobook history from a female perspective, featuring a diverse range of works created between 1843 and 1999. These works span continents, cultures, and artistic styles, and include traditional bound books, portfolios, personal albums, zines, scrapbooks, and unpublished works. The exhibition also addresses the critical gaps in photobook history, especially the underrepresentation of non-Western women and women of color.
As part of the 2024 WOPHA Congress, the Miami edition will also feature photobooks by contemporary South Florida women photographers, highlighting their ongoing contributions to the field.
What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women Reading Room and its accompanying publication is a visionary project conceived by 10×10 Photobooks and brought to Miami through a partnership with Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) and the Miami-Dade Public Library System. Following successful showings at the New York Public Library and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, WOPHA is thrilled to bring this pioneering exhibition to Miami-Dade Public Library as part of the second edition of the WOPHA Congress, How Photography Teaches Us to Live Now. The Miami reading room is curated by Amanda Bradley and Zonia Zena, with guidance from Aldeide Delgado, Russet Lederman, and Olga Yatskevich.