An unprecedented opportunity
Under the guidance of Witty Books publisher Tommaso Parrillo and designer Federico Barbon a group of photographers will be followed through the advanced phase of their projects with the goal of concluding the work and have it ready for publishing. At the end of the 6-month masterclass, all participants will be ready to present their work to an international audience in the form of a dummy or a photobook. Furthermore, Witty Books will select one of the participants’ work to be published as a 500 edition photobook as part of its catalogue. Production will be fully financed by Witty Books, with a contribution from the PHmuseum Lab.
The program will be conducted online, with one final gathering at PHmuseum Days International Photography Festival (Italy) where photobooks and dummies will be shown.
To apply, simply fill in the form with your personal details, insert a link to your project and submit for free. If your application is successful, we will notify you and you will then be able to Enroll in the Program.
In collaboration with:
How it works
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Group
ClassesDuring 3 online 5-hour group classes Tommaso Parrillo and Federico Barbon will give you a general grounding in the contemporary photobook world, editing strategies and design technique to develop your project into a photobook.
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One-to-one
MentoringWith these 2 online 60-min individual sessions you will have the time to engage in specific discussions aimed at working on your ideas and improving your method.
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Studio
VisitsTo grant you a further insight we have also organized 5 interactive studio visits’ with guest artists, curators and gallerists to let you know about their practice and get a better understanding of their approach and role in the photography industry. More info soon.
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Final meeting + work published
At the end of the program, all the dummies produced by the participants will be presented and displayed at PHmuseum Days. Witty Books will select one work to be published in the form of a book. All participants will still benefit from dissemination opportunities through PHmuseum editorial initiatives and its network.
Main professors
Tommaso Parrillo from Witty Books and Designer Federico Barbon will guide you through the exciting scene of the independent photobook publishing. Beyond offering you a clear picture of how things work, you will be granted access to practical strategies and personalized feedback to complete your work and have it ready for publishing. Plus and most importantly, they will select a project among those of the participants to be published and added to the Witty Books catalogue! A rare opportunity that can grant your career international visibility, prestige and the distribution channels through Witty Books and PHmuseum networks.
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Tommaso
Parrillo
Founder of Witty Books
Tommaso Parrillo is an Italian publisher and founder of Witty Books, a publishing house founded with the name of Witty Kiwi in 2012, that aims to promote photography and visual arts. Since 2016 he is also co-founder of JEST, an independent space dedicated to enhancing culture and photography in Turin . He also teaches photography in institutions as IED Torino, private school and workshops.
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Federico
Barbon
Graphic designer
Federico Barbon is a graphic designer focusing on web and editorial design. He studied at Bauer school in Milan, Italy (2013) and graduated from ECAL in 2019. He worked at Studiopaola (Milan), Navone Associati (Milan) and Lamm & Kirch (Leipzig). He's now working as a book designer for a number of publishers (Witty Books, Humboldt, Yoffy Press, Skinnerboox) and collaborates with ECAL.
5 Studio visits
With FOLIO we grant you a behind the scene access to the studio of recognized practitioners. A way to enrich your experience and get relevant insights. Each session comprises a presentation plus an open Q&A session to facilitate interaction. More info about the 2021 guest visitors soon.
Timeline
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October
2020
- SESSION 0 - Welcome and Presentation
- SESSION 1 - Publisher Group Tutoring (3.5 hour)
- SESSION 2 - Publisher Group Tutoring (3.5 hour)
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November
- SESSION 3 - One-to-one with Publisher (1 hour)
- SESSION 4 - 1st Studio Visit - TBC
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December
- SESSION 5 - 2nd Studio Visit - TBC
- SESSION 6 - Participants' Work Presentation
- SESSION 7 - PHmuseum Group Session
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January
2021
- SESSION 8 - Publisher & Designer Group Tutoring (3.5 hour)
- SESSION 9 - Publisher & Designer Group Tutoring (3.5 hour)
- SESSION 10 - 3rd Studio Visit - TBC
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February
- SESSION 11 - One-to-one with Publisher & Designer (1 hour)
- SESSION 12 - 4th Studio Visit - TBC
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March
- SESSION 13 - 5th Studio Visit - TBC
- SESSION 14 - Publisher & Designer Group Tutoring (3.5 hour)
- SESSION 15 - Publisher & Designer Group Tutoring (3.5 hour)
- SESSION 16 - Overview on Publishing Practice
- SESSION 17 - Participants' Work Presentation
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TBC
2022
- In-person meeting at PHmuseum Days International Photography Festival (Dates will be announced during the program)
Why participate?
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Get
publishedThis masterclass offers you the concrete and unprecedented opportunity to have the work of 1 participant published and fully founded. All the participants will also see their project become a ready-to-print dummy.
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Expand
your networkEngage with a selected group of peers and professionals from around the world, who can become a resource also for your future. Take advantage of PHmuseum and Witty Books international networks.
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Learn
practical skillsThis program grants you a first-hand experience encompassing both a theoretical and practical approach to photography, editing and design with the specific goal of a photobook in mind.
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Flexible
programIn this unstable period you can engage in a program that will happen no matter what having the chance to learn from home while working or studying.
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Competitive
priceEnjoy a high end program at our launching price, one of the most competitive on the market. If you don’t have the resources, you can also apply for 1 fully-funded scholarship.
Last Years Participants
Discover below the work of the 10 photographers who attended the first edition of the International Photobook Masterclass. Watch here their final public presentation.
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Amit
Elkayam
Photographer
In 2014 he joined the Israeli Defense Forces as a photojournalist at the Spokesman Unit, acting as one of the official photographers of the Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot.
He graduated from the International Center of Photography's Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism Program with a George Moss Scholarship.His work appeared on The New York Times, The New Yorker, VICE, Huck Magazine, Office Magazine and different Israeli publications.He interned at Magnum Photos, and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop XXXI.
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Monty
Kaplan
Photographer
I’m a selft taught nomadic photographic artist, originally from Argentina. My work is focused on conceptual documentary.
I use photography as a tool to question our sense of certainty about what we discern as reality. I’m interested in creating a dialogue in the intersubjective level, that which forms from the relationship between our subjective experiences and the objective nature of the universe we inhabit. There's a veil of meaning in front of our eyes, which is produced by our use of language to decode, make sense and communicate to one another, how we perceive the world around us. But we fail to see this tool of language as the double-edged sword it is, since we want to grasp for meaning, where there is none, other than the one we ourselves create. My work is an attack on this reality.
As a former filmmaker, my style is very cinematic with a brooding atmospheric quality to it. I produce strikingly graphic and hostile pictures, to elicit a visceral sense of displacement in the viewer.
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Yshao
Lin
Photographer
Yshao works with artist books, photography, new media arts and installation. By drawing upon forms rooted in personal memory, struggles and experience, His works investigate issues in migration, sense of belonging and cultural negotiation under modernization.
His works have been recognized with awards. He has been selected for Antoine d'Agata's residency in Arles, France in April chosen to participate in the New York Times Portfolio Review. He also received the Flash Forward Award (Canada). His works have been exhibited in COME TOGETHER: ART AND POLITICS IN A CLIMATE OF UNREST, Tate Modern, United Kingdom and other venues in China and the United States.
His works are in institutional collections including Jiazazhi Photo Book Library (China), and Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection.
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Nikola
Lorenzin
Photographer
Nikola Lorenzin (1989) was born in Belgrade just before the dissolution of Yugoslavia, but he grew up in Italy.
After graduating in Renewable Energy Engineering, he turned his attention towards photography, completing courses in LENS and BlankPaper in Madrid. His work as a photographer and filmmaker merges documentary narratives with conceptual and open-ended subjective approaches, with the intention of exploring the cracks of contemporary society from a philosophical standpoint and the linguistic potential, in terms of relations and meanings, that can be established between images.
He currently lives in Milan, where he co-founded the collective of directors Santabelva.
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Ann
Massal
Photographer
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Marisol
Mendez
Photographer
Marisol Mendez (1991) uses her camera to study the tension between truth and fiction, the tight relationship between what a photograph creates and the (sur)real it comes from. Unconcerned with image hierarchies, she combines lo-fi procedures with sophisticated photographic techniques to explore the dynamics between immediacy and intimacy, memory and identity.
Marisol received a BA in Audiovisual Communication at Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires and a Masters in Fashion Photography at the University of the Arts, London. She has exhibited across Europe, Argentina and Bolivia and her work has been featured internationally. She was recently selected as one of the recipients of the 2020 Michael Reichmann’s Project Grant.
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Emilio
Nasser
Photographer
His work is focused on exploring urban and folk legends, memory, identity, and community participation. Trying to expand through different media, the documentary narrative possibilities. These topics and some other things that he does not know how to explain very well on a conscious level, he has been working on his visual projects.
Graduated in Photography at the School of Applied Arts Lino Spilimbergo in Argentina. While living beetwin Latin America and Europe, he participated in diverse educational visual training experiences; as Folio Phmuseum, Laura El-Tantawy-Sybren Kuiper, Experimental´s Photobook-Julián Barón, Martín Parr-Joan Fontcuberta, Estudio Marcos López, Rodrigo Fierro- Gabriel Orge, among others.
Currently in the ISSP Masterclass with Lisa Barnard as a mentor.
A few years ago, he self-published a photobook under the name Game Over.
Exhibited, published in places as Verzasca Foto Festival (CH), Finalist in Emergentes International Photography Award-Encontros da Imagen (PT), Valongo Festival Intl. Da Imagen (BR), Yet-Magazine (CH), PHEspaña (ES), 20Fotógrafos (MX), SCAN PhotoBooks (ES), Ojo de Pez (ES) etc. Twice awarded scholarship by the National Art Fund (AR).
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Greta
Pettinari
Photographer
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Riccardo
Svelto
Photographer
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Wenkai
Wang
Photographer
Wenkai Wang, born in 1996, originally from China, is a New York
and Shanghai based photographer, filmmaker and production designer. Wenkai
earned his BA degree in Film&TV at NYU Tisch School of The Arts,
United States. The works of Wenkai Wang are often results of
juxtaposing staged reality with an unlikely cast of the surreal.
Wenkai’s work has been recently included in the 2020 LensCulture
Exposure Award.
How to enroll
Just click on apply now and send us your portfolio and main info before 10 September 2021. If your application is successful, you will then be able to enroll in the program.
All the applications will be reviewed by Tommaso Parrillo and PHmuseum’s Team. What we will consider is the potential of your ongoing project, the strength of your ideas and the coherence of your portfolio.
Participation fee
30 July - If you apply by this date you can be eligible for the full scholarship. Please take care of sending a motivational paragraph that addresses why you would benefit from attending the program.
31 August - If you apply by this date you can be eligible for the Early Bird Fee of €1,500. All applications submitted for the scholarship will be automatically eligible for the Early Bird Fee.
10 September - If you apply by this date you can join the program paying the Regular Fee of €1,650. The seats are limited, so we recommend you to not wait until the last day.
Please note, in case you will be offered a place, PHmuseum will be happy to provide you with a supporting letter when you try to secure any external funding opportunities. For example, in previous editions of our masterclasses, the fee of candidates has been fully funded thanks to the generous support of IWMF Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists or other national programs.
Technical details
All the online classes are held on ZOOM. We will grant you a specific link each time and you’ll need to connect at least 15 minutes before.
To attend them you will need:
Mac OS x 10.11 or higher or Windows 7 or higher.*
A stable internet connection
A quiet environment
Access to Google Drive
Want to know more?
Drop us a line at rocco@phmuseum.com.