DUMMY DEEP DIVE
Workshop with Aaron Schuman
Dummy Deep Dive is a workshop on making photobooks held by Aaron Schuman and organized by PhMuseum during Photobook Mania 2025, Bologna on 18-19 October 2025.
- Where Serra Madre, Via Castiglione 132-134, Bologna
- When 18-19 October 2025
- Language English
- Positions 8–14
- Contacts If you have any questions you can reach us at edu@phmuseum.com
The Workshop
This workshop with Aaron Schuman is aimed at photographers and artists who are in the midst of developing a photobook dummy of their own, or have the ambitions to do so with a recent body of work. Given the inherent ambiguities and elasticity of the photographic image, and the limitless possibilities available to an author when it comes to bringing a collection of photographs together into book form, the challenge of making a photobook can often be both confusing and overwhelming.
Through techniques associated with “close reading”, this workshop will explore how elements such as structure, motifs, sequencing, syntax, and contextualisation can be identified, played with, and bring newfound focus, coherence and meaning to a body of photographic work within the form of a photobook.
How it works
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Early Bird Fee €180 (apply before 19 September) | Regular Fee €230
OpenParticipants are invited to bring a draft of a current dummy-in-progress - in either a physical form or as a PDF - and/or a selection of 10-15 key images from the associated project in the form of physical work-prints (the work-prints should be small enough to be able to be easily spread out and moved around on a table).
The first day will consist of an intensive seminar and group discussion centred around the main themes of the workshop, followed by a series of exercises that will utilize the participants’ photographs to collectively play with various structural and sequential strategies, helping each participant to gain new insights and perspectives into their work and its possibilities when it comes to developing their own photobook.
The second day will consist of a series of in-depth portfolio/dummy reviews and “close readings” with Aaron Schuman, focusing on each individual participant’s specific dummy-in-progress and/or body of work, with bespoke feedback provided on the potential directions, developmental strategies, and creative possibilities of each participant’s photobook.
Head professor
Aaron Schuman
AARON SCHUMAN is an American photographer, writer, curator and educator based in the United Kingdom. He is the author of several critically acclaimed photographic photobooks including: Passacör (Witty Books, 2025), Heft (GRAIN Projects, 2025), Sonata (MACK, 2022); Slant (MACK, 2019), and FOLK (NB Books, 2016). His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in many public and private collections. In addition to his own photographic work, Schuman has contributed essays, interviews, texts and photographs to many other books and monographs, including Filippo Barbero: Borderland (Witty Books, 2025), On the Verge (Void, 2023), Matteo Giovanni: I Had to Shed My Skin (Artphilein, 2022), OK No Response (Twin Palms, 2021), Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Shoot (Aperture, 2021), Amak Mahmoodian: Zanjir (RRB, 2019), Aperture Conversations: 1985 to the Present(Aperture, 2018), Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins (Prestel / Barbican, 2018), and Alec Soth: Gathered Leaves(MACK, 2015). He also writes and photographs for a wide variety of magazines and publications, such as Aperture, Frieze, Foam, ArtReview, TIME, Magnum Online, Granta, Hotshoe, Hapax, 1000 Words, The British Journal of Photography and more. Schuman has curated several major international festivals including JaipurPhoto Festiival, Krakow Photomonth, and FotoFest Biennial, as well as exhibitions for institutions such as FOMU Antwerp and The Royal Photographic Society. He was the founder and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine (2004-2014), and is Associate Professor of Photography & Visual Culture at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).
