CENTRAL 2025, Birmingham’s first photobook festival.
The event will bring together a wide ranging group of publishers, talks, and exhibits, all centred around the photobook.
CENTRAL is an event thats not just about buying and selling photobooks but more about sharing, learning and engaging with the photobook; centring a community of makers, collectors, researchers & new audiences.
Complimenting the publishers tables and talks CENTRAL will include curatorial interventions; Displays of photobooks from an Art & photo-Historical context.
Taking place 17 & 18 October 2025 at The Parkside Building BCU, 10am-5pm
Central is a free event with a free public programme
——
The event will bring together a wide ranging group of publishers, talks, and exhibits, all centred around the photobook.
CENTRAL is an event thats not just about buying and selling photobooks but more about sharing, learning and engaging with the photobook; centring a community of makers, collectors, researchers & new audiences.
Complimenting the publishers tables and talks CENTRAL will include curatorial interventions; Displays of photobooks from an Art & photo-Historical context.
Taking place 17 & 18 October 2025 at The Parkside Building BCU, 10am-5pm
Central is a free event with a free public programme
——
EXHIBITS
BOOKS FROM THE PETE JAMES COLLECTION
Curated by Stuart Whipps
Pete James was the Curator of Photography Collections at the Library of Birmingham where he established an unrivalled collection of British photography, ranging from historical photographs by Sir Benjamin Stone to entire archives of work by renowned photographers such as Daniel Meadows, Martin Parr, Brian Griffin, John Myers, Anna Fox, Vanley Burke, Val Williams and including his personal collection of books. A selection of books, prints and ephemera have been drawn from this remarkable collection to be displayed at CENTRAL.
PALESTINE BOUND
Curated by Mohamed Somji & Chris Neophytou
This display brings together a selection of contemporary photobooks made in Palestine. This presentation aims to spotlight photobooks that centre Palestinian narratives. Some are by Palestinian authors, others by global minority photographers who have used their work to platform Palestinian voices. In places like Gaza and the West Bank, the everyday and the political are often indistinguishable. In these contexts, the photobook becomes not just a form of expression, but a weapon of truth.
FROM THE CENTRE
Photobooks from The Midlands
Curated by Chris Neophytou
We have brought together a collection of photobooks, that in whole or in part, take the Midlands as their subject. This display includes both historical and contemporay photobooks by photographers that call the midlands home and those that came as visitors. A short intoruction to photobooks from the centre.
BOOKS FROM THE PETE JAMES COLLECTION
Curated by Stuart Whipps
Pete James was the Curator of Photography Collections at the Library of Birmingham where he established an unrivalled collection of British photography, ranging from historical photographs by Sir Benjamin Stone to entire archives of work by renowned photographers such as Daniel Meadows, Martin Parr, Brian Griffin, John Myers, Anna Fox, Vanley Burke, Val Williams and including his personal collection of books. A selection of books, prints and ephemera have been drawn from this remarkable collection to be displayed at CENTRAL.
PALESTINE BOUND
Curated by Mohamed Somji & Chris Neophytou
This display brings together a selection of contemporary photobooks made in Palestine. This presentation aims to spotlight photobooks that centre Palestinian narratives. Some are by Palestinian authors, others by global minority photographers who have used their work to platform Palestinian voices. In places like Gaza and the West Bank, the everyday and the political are often indistinguishable. In these contexts, the photobook becomes not just a form of expression, but a weapon of truth.
FROM THE CENTRE
Photobooks from The Midlands
Curated by Chris Neophytou
We have brought together a collection of photobooks, that in whole or in part, take the Midlands as their subject. This display includes both historical and contemporay photobooks by photographers that call the midlands home and those that came as visitors. A short intoruction to photobooks from the centre.
TALKS
- EMMA LAMBERT 11:00 - 12:00
SILVERGRASS PRESS / Objects and Encounters in a collaborative photobook practice
Emma Lambert is a photographer and educator, currently teaching on the BA Photography programme at Coventry University. She works with experimental photographic publishing for both pedagogical exploration and creative curiosity. She is interested in the physical, material and tactile processes involved in photobook-making and their potential to generate collaboration and social engagement.
Emma runs Silvergrass Press a space to develop and create collaborative photobooks where the form and narrative of the book, craft and process are valued as much as the social and relational aspects of making things public. a space to explore individual and collective ideas of space, place and experience, cultivation, the land and the local.
- RACHEL BARKER 12:30 - 13:00
From Concept to Collector: How STANLEY/BARKER Shapes Photobooks
STANLEY/BARKER is a publishing house founded in London by Rachel and Gregory Barker. From their West Midlands studio in the heart of the English countryside they produce beautiful photobooks of substance and depth. In a little over 10 years they have established themselves as an internationally recognised, leading publisher of photobooks.
This talk is a unique opportunity to gain insight into how Stanley/Barker bring a photobook to life. An intimate look into the process, development, design and sequencing that go into the publishing of a photobook.
- TIFFANY JONES 14:00 - 15:00
OVERLAPSE: More than a Photobook: Concept development and design for meaningful visual storytelling
Tiffany Jones is the founder of Overlapse, a London-based photobook imprint started in 2015 while researching ‘Dynamics of the Photobooks Market’ for her MA in Publishing with Oxford Brookes University. With over 30 years dedicated to arts publishing and photojournalism, she is an editor, designer, researcher and educator working with programmes and institutions around the world.
She collaborates in tandem with photographers and artists to communicate through the making of unique, desirable, and beautifully produced books. Subjects and stories address social, cultural, and environmental issues, and highlight enduring and universal themes connected to human experience. A few notable publications include You can call me Nana by Will Harris (finalist, 2021 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation Awards), A Parallel Road by Amani Willett (top 10 photobooks of 2021, David Campany for ICP), and Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals by Mandy Barker (nominated for the 2018 Deutsche Börse Foundation Prize).
Since 2020, Tiffany has been a Lecturer in photobook development at London College of Communication, University of the Arts. Previously, she studied photojournalism in Canada (her home country) and worked as an independent photographer for several years, exhibiting her own projects.
- EMMA LAMBERT 11:00 - 12:00
SILVERGRASS PRESS / Objects and Encounters in a collaborative photobook practice
Emma Lambert is a photographer and educator, currently teaching on the BA Photography programme at Coventry University. She works with experimental photographic publishing for both pedagogical exploration and creative curiosity. She is interested in the physical, material and tactile processes involved in photobook-making and their potential to generate collaboration and social engagement.
Emma runs Silvergrass Press a space to develop and create collaborative photobooks where the form and narrative of the book, craft and process are valued as much as the social and relational aspects of making things public. a space to explore individual and collective ideas of space, place and experience, cultivation, the land and the local.
- RACHEL BARKER 12:30 - 13:00
From Concept to Collector: How STANLEY/BARKER Shapes Photobooks
STANLEY/BARKER is a publishing house founded in London by Rachel and Gregory Barker. From their West Midlands studio in the heart of the English countryside they produce beautiful photobooks of substance and depth. In a little over 10 years they have established themselves as an internationally recognised, leading publisher of photobooks.
This talk is a unique opportunity to gain insight into how Stanley/Barker bring a photobook to life. An intimate look into the process, development, design and sequencing that go into the publishing of a photobook.
- TIFFANY JONES 14:00 - 15:00
OVERLAPSE: More than a Photobook: Concept development and design for meaningful visual storytelling
Tiffany Jones is the founder of Overlapse, a London-based photobook imprint started in 2015 while researching ‘Dynamics of the Photobooks Market’ for her MA in Publishing with Oxford Brookes University. With over 30 years dedicated to arts publishing and photojournalism, she is an editor, designer, researcher and educator working with programmes and institutions around the world.
She collaborates in tandem with photographers and artists to communicate through the making of unique, desirable, and beautifully produced books. Subjects and stories address social, cultural, and environmental issues, and highlight enduring and universal themes connected to human experience. A few notable publications include You can call me Nana by Will Harris (finalist, 2021 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation Awards), A Parallel Road by Amani Willett (top 10 photobooks of 2021, David Campany for ICP), and Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals by Mandy Barker (nominated for the 2018 Deutsche Börse Foundation Prize).
Since 2020, Tiffany has been a Lecturer in photobook development at London College of Communication, University of the Arts. Previously, she studied photojournalism in Canada (her home country) and worked as an independent photographer for several years, exhibiting her own projects.
Including:
Stanley/Barker
Overlapse
Ceremony Press
DuskBooks
David O'Mara
Peer Matters
Silvergrass Press
First fold Press
GRAIN Projects
Gulf Photo Plus
Hark1Karan
No Go Press
Out of Place Books