Scrapbook
Donovan Wylie and Timothy Prus

This has been made all for the love of scrapbooks. For about three centuries in many different countries, a scrapbook or album became the most immediate manner of diary making. In Ireland, this often took on a particular and idiosyncratic form. From the late 1960s until the early 1990s, the turmoil of Northern Ireland was often reflected in these hand-constructed books. Clippings from newspapers, family photos and personal mementos often found their way into highly individual collaged records of daily life. Donovan Wylie and Timothy Prus have recreated a non-sectarian version with the benefit of hindsight. Wylie, son of a mixed marriage, grew up in Belfast during a period when identification with one side of the sectarian divide or another was an essential component of everyday life. Scrapbook gives nothing but the authors’ personal view of an era and a kind of record making. ¹

Donovan Wylie was born in Belfast in 1971, a child of mixed Catholic and Protestant marriage. His book The Maze was published to international acclaim in 2004, as was British Watchtowers in 2007. In 2001 he won a BAFTA for his film The Train, and he has had solo exhibitions at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, PhotoEspana, Madrid, and the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Bradford, England. He is a member of Magnum Photos. ²

Timothy Prus (b. 1959) is an English visual artist and curator of Archive of Modern Conflict since 1992. He is also an exhibition organiser and a photobook editor. His previous publications include Whale’s Eyelash (2014), Nein, Onkle (2007), Scrapbook (2009) and The Corinthians (2008). Previous exhibitions include Lodz Ghetto (Muzeum Sztuki, 2005), Collected Shadows (Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2013), Notes Homes (FORMAT International Photography Festival, Derby, 2013), The Great Refusal (2013) and A Guide to the Protection of the Public in Peacetime (Tate Modern, London, 2014). ³

Gerhard Steidl began working as a printer and designer in 1968. From political non-fiction he then expanded into literature and selected books on art and photography. Steidl publishes German literature as well as translations from French, English and Icelandic.In 1994 Steidl launched its international photobook program. Today it includes some of the world’s most renowned photographers and artists including Joel Sternfeld, Bruce Davidson, Robert Frank, Robert Adams, Karl Lagerfeld, Lewis Baltz, Dayanita Singh, Ed Ruscha, Roni Horn and Juergen Teller, to name but a few. Every Steidl book distinguishes itself through individual design and production values. Known for his passion for paper, printer and publisher Gerhard Steidl personally selects the paper and binding materials for each title and oversees all aspects of the production process – each Steidl book literally passes through his hands. Over the decades Steidl at Düstere Strasse 4 in Göttingen has become one of the most respected printers in the international publishing world. Whether photography, art, fashion or literature, it is Steidl’s goal to realize the dreams and goals of artists and authors, and to create art in book form. ⁴