Protests have been a crucial part of dissent over the years. From the suffragette protests for women’s right to vote to the current protests for Palestinians’ right to live—our world has consistently been shaped by voicing our demands for a better future. In this, protest photography has also played a pivotal role in inspiring a revolution. Considering the breadth of work that has been created in this genre, there are very few publications that can encompass it all. However, a new photo book edited by Russet Lederman and Olga Yatskevich hopes to give a more holistic view of resistance from the 1950s to the present: Flashpoint!
All images in this article are screenshots from the 10 x 10 Photobooks’ website.
What is The Photo Book About?
The publication was recently shortlisted for the Aperture PhotoBook Awards 2024, and it is an anthology that looks at protest photography in print, published in the form of zines, photo books, posters, pamphlets, independent journals, and alternative newspapers. On these pages, you see people battling issues such as migration crises, territorial disputes, gender inequity, class divisions, racism, war, gun violence, and environmental concerns. The photographs depict the rift between our ideology and how protests have become a critical tool in resisting draconian laws and othering of the marginalized.
The photo book looks at more than 245 distinct print forms of protest photography, which have been divided into seven chapters across the publication. For instance, the themes include Anti, Gender, Displacement, Race and Class, Environment, Political, and War and Violence. These chapters are further divided into subcategories, which include AIDS, civil rights, anti-imperialism, workers’ rights, student protests, and much more.
To illustrate what makes such photographs so captivating, the Flashpoint! also features essays from Makeda Best, Hannah Darabi, Arthur Fournier, Marc Feustel, Kerry Manders, Elisa Medde, Mark Sealy, and Pauline Vermare. Furthermore, it encompasses works from around the seven continents, giving viewers a detailed look at how protests have made a change.
Why You Need More Publications Like Flashpoint!
There are so many reasons why a photo book like this needs more attention today. With each passing year, there have been numerous changes to our social, cultural, and political landscape: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reproductive rights, surveillance, Indigenous rights, state respiration, and so on. At such times, activities and protestors are some of the most important people who are marinating balance by calling for equality. While we need to highlight such instances, trying to give these forms of dissent a more nuanced view is also significant.
This is why a book on global protest photography becomes so critical. It allows photographers and the general public to start a much-needed discourse on how to protest and do so effectively. There is a chance many won’t agree with the kind of photography featured in the book, but it needs to be more inclusive and diverse. After all, the latter two are the things that we miss the most today.
Protest photography is just a start. Today, we need more photo books that further dissect various forms of resistance and revolution. Knowledge is key in such situations, and the more we bring a discourse on this to the public, the more we are likely to raise a generation that does not fear in the face of oppression—whether it is from the state or from powerful billionaires.
Head to the 10 x 10 Photobooks’ website to purchase the photo book.