The Problem Horse & Other Stories is a darkly poetic meditation on our relationship to horses and the natural world. It is a search for connection with another species that questions the desires and anxieties that drive this relationship.
This hand-bound book has been acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Bodleian Library, Oxford for their special collections. It has also been shown at photo festivals as part of the Sustainable Photobook Library and Women and the Photobook Library.
Sleaford uses analogue processes in the darkroom, and through interventions with the print, to explore the emotional response of her memory of the horses and landscape she encounters. The resulting self-published, hand bound book features a text-free flow of black & white photographs, including images of horses, the landscape, still life and performative photographs of the artist that contemplate the complexity of our relationship with another animal. The multiple folds-outs within the book accent how much remains hidden from us.
Publisher: Self Published, 2022
Photographer: Julie Sleaford
Graphic Design: Emily Macauley of Stanley James Press
Format: Hand stitched book with fold-out pages in folder.
Size: 19 x 14 cms
ISBN: 978-1-912319-05-03
Edition: 100 signed and numbered.
Can be purchased at The Photographers' Gallery Bookshop or https://julie-sleaford.sumupstore.com (link on home page)
Photographs of book by Curtis James