Jason Eskenazi, Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright Scholar, will discuss his Black Garden Trilogy (Wonderland~Black Garden~Departure Lounge) that spans 25 years of work published by Red Hook Editions. After Wonderland was published to great acclaim in 2008, Jason worked for a while as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (guarding “Looking In: Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans.’”) before returning east. The result of his wanderings through the Middle East, Russia, and Europe, Black Garden and Departure Lounge complete his trilogy with photos from his travels after Wonderland’s publication as well as from his archive from 1991-2017.
Indeed, Jason said in an interview that the title of the last book refers to a room near the front door of a loft Jason shared with other photojournalists where they would wait for taxis to arrive to take them to the airport. Each book has 314 photos numbered sequentially through all 3 books with 9 chapters.
Jason and moderator Ziyah Gafic will discuss Jason’s approach to long-term projects, editing and sequences of the books, and touch on bookmaking and publishing. Jason is co-owner of Red Hook Editions in Brooklyn, and co-editor of Dog Food photo zine. He lives between New York and Istanbul.
