Photography and Collaboration: From Conceptual Art to Crowdsourcing

Photography and Collaboration is the first book to position a broad range of collaborative photographic practices by contemporary artists in a historical and theoretical context.

Unlike conventional accounts of photography that celebrate individual photographers and their personal visions, this book explores the concept of multiple authorship in photography. From artistic partnerships to crowdsourced projects, the book presents an expanded idea of authorial agency, not simply considering relationships between photographers, but between photographed subjects, spectators and digital software. Organized thematically, the five chapters each focus on three case studies of contemporary, international artists, set against broader histories of photographic practice. It argues for a revisioning of photographic history, showing how collaboration has been an important and overlooked part of the medium’s development.

Focusing on contemporary practice, from the found photograph to images shared through social media, Photography and Collaboration offers an entirely fresh take on existing debates in art photography.