Trigger #5: Energy consists of thirteen contributions (essays, artist contributions, conversations) which engender possible ways photography might start to unlearn entrenched ideas and habits concerning the use and abuse of energy.

With contributions by: Duncan Wooldridge, Sylvia Ballhause, Máté Dobokay, Agata Madejska, Mariama Attah, Euridice Zaituna Kala, René D’amour Hitimana, Risk Hazekamp, Eline Benjaminsen, Tanja Engelberts, Bas Blaasse, Hannah Fletcher, Hiroki Shin, Cara Daggett, Sheng-Wen Lo, Cale Garrido, Kateryna Radchenko, Yana Kononova, Tina Farifteh, Yvette Monahan, Hiền Hoàng, Sebastian Koudijzer, Léonard Pongo, Caroline Woolard.

Trigger #5: Energy is a ‘FUTURES edition’, funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union. Every year FUTURES (@futuresphotography) - a Europe-based photography platform bringing together the global photography community to support and nurture the professional development of emerging artists across the world – publishes a themed book, and for 2023 they invited FOMU, being a FUTURES member, to develop a new publication through Trigger.

Trigger #5 is edited by FUTURES members, Julia Gelezova & Ángel Luis González Fernández (@photoireland), Emese Mucsi (@capacenter ), Daria Tuminas (@fotodok.nl ), and Tom Viaene (FOMU).

It is designed and distributed by Hans Gremmen/Fw:Books.

Cover image: female anger expressed by Roshanak Morrowatian (@roshanak_morrowatian), photo by Tina Farifteh (@tinafarifteh)

Photographers, writers and thinkers:
@elinebenjaminsen @matedobokay @tanja_engelberts @tinafarifteh @hiennhoangg @lakalastudio @yana_kononov @sebastiankoudijzer @sheng_wen_lo @yvettemonahan @leonardpongo @sylviaballhause @agata__madejska @mariama_attah @sustainabledarkroom @hfletch #caranewdaggett @calemunch @radchenko_ua @carolinewoolard @anti_foto
Editors:
@julia.gelezova @bohoe @tuminasdaria @mucsimesi @tom.viaene.31
Designer:
@hans.gremmen @fw.books

Trigger #4: Together

Designed by Hans Gremmen (@hans.gremmen), Fw:Books (@fw.books). Guest-edited by the American photographer Susan Meiselas (@susanmeiselas), who helped design and compile it.

Trigger #4: Together explores various forms of collaboration in photography. Sixteen contributions engage with strategies of co-creation that stretch notions of authorship and ownership, breaking through existing heteronormative, state-owned, or hyper-individual categories. Essays by Elspeth Brown, Ileana Selejan (#IleanaSelejan) and Hettie Judah (@hettiejudah) respectively zoom in on the ‘cross-dressing’ archives of Casa Susana, the multitude of protest movements and the healing of cultural spaces. Forms and conflicts of human and more-than-human togetherness are explored through the work of Jonathas de Andrade (@jonathasdeandrade), Grace Ndiritu (@theofficialgracendiritu), Leigh Ledare (@mink_monk_rip), Dries Segers (@dries_segers), Meghann Riepenhoff (@meghanriepenhoff) and Vincen Beeckman (@beeckmanvincen). Rabiaâ Benlahbib and Taylor Dorrell (@taylordorrell) each interviewed photographers and curators, working in the broader field of socially engaged practices. Nato Thompson (@natothompson) would have ‘curator’ changed in ‘infrastructure builder’. Both Rita Ouédraogo (@ritaouedraogo) and Mariama Attah (@mariama_attah) on their part, see a crucial role for the curator as caregiver in making sure the focus is on ‘togethering’ as a process. Last but not least, Debmalya Roy Choudhuri (@debchoudhuri), Susanne Kriemann (@susanne.kriemann), Tuan Andrew Nguyen (@tuan.andrew.nguyen), Kaali Collective (@kaali_collective), Rehab Eldalil (@rehabeldalil), Hoda Afshar (@hodaafshar) and Anthony Luvera (@anthony_luvera), have repurposed existing work for ‘together(ness)’.

You can get your copy through FOMU’s online shop.

Trigger #3: Care

The third issue of Trigger gathers forms, coalitions, conflicts and archives of care through photography and visual art practices. Care is everywhere and at the same time society faces a ‘care problem’. How do artists and photographers create more caring relationships between humans, technology, and nature, given the challenges ? An editorial commitment to care by an international Belgian-Dutch-German team leads to a variety of artistic practices and underrepresented stories. Theoretical text contributions, visual contributions, and experimental, hybrid formats stand side by side.

Trigger#3: Care is published in close collaboration with the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie (Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg) and Iris Sikking (curator of the 2022 edition) as guest editors and designed by Hans Gremmen (Fw: Books, Amsterdam). It will be launched during Paris Photo (11 – 14 November) on Friday morning November 12 at Atelier Néerlandais.

In this issue we present the work of: Aurélie Bayad, Bindi Vora, Silvy Crespo, Pablo Lerma, Liz Orton & Sharon Young, Mashid Mohadjerin, Grace Ndiritu, WAI Architecture Think Tank, Lisa Barnard, Mónica Alcázar-Duarte, Mischa Vallejo, Gerard Ortín Castellví, Noémi Goudal, Frida Orupabo, Rune Peitersen, Karolina Gembara.

With essay contributions and conversations by: Christoph Miler (Offshore studio), Laura Herman, Jana Johanna Haeckel, Sara Knelman, Macarena Gómez-Barris and George King.

Trigger #2: Uncertainty

The School of Speculative Documentary (associated with KASK & Conservatorium / School of Arts Gent, Belgium), FOMU and FW:Books have been collaborating for the publication of Trigger nr. 2 on the issue of UNCERTAINTY. It harbors contributions by, amongst others, Liz Orton, Petra Van Brabandt, T.J. Demos, Duncan Forbes, Max Pinckers, Georges Senga, Hoda Afshar, Fred Ritchin and Wilco Versteeg.

What if we allow speculation, messiness and befoggedness to set the conditions for documentary gestures and practices? What if we start using speculation as a tool, how can we re-imagine past, present and future?

Contemporary documentary practice has a crucial role to play within art, mainstream media and activism. It constitutes less a genre, and more ‘a critical method’ in its own right. How can we rethink the documentary attitude conceptually, formally and methodologically? UNCERTAINTY! What if this unfinished business of the documentary, creates even more possibilities for speculation and imagination? How can we make decentralized, deformatted and polycentric documentaries, even if we assume that we will never fully succeed?

Trigger #2 explores the potentials, the problems and paradoxes of an openly speculative documentary.

Trigger #1: Impact

The first printed issue on ‘Impact’ was made in close collaboration with The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KABK), The Hague, The Netherlands, and guest editor Donald Weber, teacher and researcher at KABK.

This first issue deals with photography's 'impact', in different social and political contexts, in our current time joint and in the past. The core of this issue stems from the questions and concerns with which, the master programme ‘Photography & Society’ at the KABK already deals with; photography as a means to take part in global debate, whether it technological, political, environmental or social.

Three questions guide us through this issue on ‘Impact’:

• Can we still assume photography’s (age-old) impact in an image-saturated world, where fake news, the questioning of representative democracy and the return of colonial pasts are engaging different political cultures, publics, action and pression groups?
• How can photography function as a tool for environmental change?
• What is the role of photographs in political debates?

These questions will be tackled from a photographer’s standpoint, but also from the position of the photograph itself or from the actors (mis)using photographic images to enforce (political) impact. In short, can (or should) photography have (such) an impact on our society.