Women with a camera (and a typewriter): the art of publishing.

A Public Engagement project organized by Donata Meneghelli e Beatrice Seligardi

Inspired by the seminar series Women with a Camera (and a notebook, a sheet of paper, a pen, a laptop...), this new series of talks focuses on the dimension of the editorial work as a space for promoting the role of women within the cultural industry, particularly at the intersection of the written word and photography.

The ultra-contemporary context is characterised by an unprecedented proliferation of images and a profound epistemological shift in their relationship with truth, identity, and community. Editorial mediation plays a key role in shaping the relationships between text and image within cultural objects that are becoming increasingly prevalent in contemporary intermedial production, such as phototexts and photobooks. This is an area that is expanding rapidly in terms of cultural events, such as exhibitions and book fairs, as well as of critical reflection.

One particularly interesting aspect is the significant presence of women in artistic production and writing, as well as in editing and curating phototexts. This offers insight into gender dynamics within publishing, literary, and artistic institutions. Phototexts and photobooks are therefore particularly interesting phenomena through which to understand how images and narratives shape our ability to comprehend and experience the world.

Women with a Camera (and a Typewriter): The Art of Publishing is a Public Engagement project that aims to highlight the presence of women within certain key sectors of contemporary production, such as literature, photography and publishing. Through a series of talks and a podcast series, professionals from the world of phototext engage with the public, facilitated by scholars, to reflect on how phototexts – conceived in the format of the book-object – challenge a series of entrenched dichotomies within the contemporary media sphere in which society is now immersed on multiple fronts: analogue-digital, permanence-impermanence, narration-montage, fiction-non-fiction.

The aim is to foster a process of intermedial literacy and develop a shared critical perspective on the impact that intermedial narratives have on our understanding of the complexity of the contemporary world. This will be achieved through a synergistic approach that brings together stakeholders from the cultural sector and civil society, including publishing houses, cultural associations, academics, students and the general public.

The sessions, moderated by the curators, will take place in person between April and October 2026 and will feature national and international guests.

It will be possible to access a virtual room on request for valid reasons (physical distance, study commitments abroad, health conditions, etc.) by sending an email to ficlit.textl@unibo.it to receive a personal invitation link.