Photographer and Educator, Siri Kaur, joins me to discuss her new monograph, Sistermoon published by Void.

Artist Siri Kaur has been photographing her family for over 30 years, and her youngest sister, Simran, is the central focus of her forthcoming book, Sistermoon. Kaur’s photographs are combined with those from her family archive to create an unconventional album, illustrating the cycles of life and transformation, whilst questioning who observes, who is seen and who belongs. Kaur’s biography informs her work. The book opens with a timeline of photographs from her mother’s traditional family, taken in the 1950s by her grandfather. Kaur herself was born into a cult—one image in the book depicts her parent’s wedding at the Happy Healthy Holy Organization, or 3HO in 1976. After Kaur's family left the cult, her father established a rural living community in Vermont where her siblings remain today. Kaur simultaneously belonged to the family and was also an outsider. Her relationship with her family, in particular her sister, was formed and strengthened by creating photographs together. Photography enabled her to observe, catalogue, and connect.

https://void.photo/preorder

https://www.instagram.com/sirikaur/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

Siri Kaur is an artist and photographer who examines identities that occupy dualities, diversity, and contradiction. Originally from Maine, Kaur is currently based in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and an MA and a BA from Smith College, Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited widely at venues such as Aperture Foundation, New York; Camera Club of New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Portland Museum of Art; San Antonio Museum of Art; Vermont Center for Photography, amongst others. She was a Professor of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design from 2007-2018 and currently teaches at UCLA.

More wonderful attendee recordings from the 2025 Chico Review with those who came to Chico to share their work and their stories with incredible reviewers. This year I recorded with over 40 attendees! I’ve also linked to the guest’s Instagram and Websites so you can see the work. And again this year, I was recording in a variety of spaces at the beautiful Chico Hot Springs resort so there may be a number of different ambient sounds across the recordings.

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Sixty-four applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.

https://chicoreview.com

https://www.charcoalworkshops.com

03:00 - Caitlyn Kingery

https://www.instagram.com/cat.kingery

13:00 - Oliver Stegmann

https://www.instagram.com/oliverstegmann

https://www.oliverstegmann.com/

20:50 - Sasha Williams

https://www.instagram.com/sashacastawilliams

https://sashacasta.com/

28:35 - Eric McCollum

https://www.instagram.com/eemccollum

http://www.eemccollum.com

36:35 - Mischa Lluch

https://www.instagram.com/mischalluchphoto

https://mischalluchphoto.com/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

More wonderful attendee recordings from the 2025 Chico Review with those who came to Chico to share their work and their stories with incredible reviewers. This year I recorded with over 40 attendees! I’ve also linked to the guest’s Instagram and Websites so you can see the work. And again this year, I was recording in a variety of spaces at the beautiful Chico Hot Springs resort so there may be a number of different ambient sounds across the recordings.

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Sixty-four applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.

https://chicoreview.com

https://www.charcoalworkshops.com

04:25 - Sharday Swanepoel

https://www.instagram.com/shardayswanepoel

12:25 - Theo Zeal

https://www.instagram.com/theo_zeal/

19:25 - Anna Leigh Clem

http://www.annaleighclem.com

https://www.instagram.com/aapertura/

26:04 - Walter Morataya Ramirez

https://www.instagram.com/walterrr/

33:35 - Christopher Jarvis

https://www.christopherjarvis.net

https://www.instagram.com/christopher_jarvis_/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

Alejandro Cartagena | Ground Rules

Photographer, publisher, and curator Alejandro Cartagena joined me at the 2025 Chico Review. We talk about the many different ways in which Alejandro practices photography and how much he has embraced being and editor and curator for others. Alejandro also discusses his upcoming retrospective, Ground Rules, at SFMOMA, curated by Shana Lopes along with the accompanying book published by Aperture. The show opens in September and the book is scheduled for November.

https://alejandrocartagena.com — https://www.instagram.com/alexcartagenamex/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

Alejandro Cartagena, Mexican (b. 1977, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) lives and works in Monterrey, Mexico. His projects employ landscape and portraiture as a means to examine social, urban, and environmental issues. Cartagena’s work has been exhibited internationally in more than 50 group and individual exhibitions in spaces including the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris and the CCCB in Barcelona, and his work is in the collections of several museums including the San Francisco MOMA, The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, The MFAH in Houston, the Portland Museum of Art, The West Collection, the Coppel collection, the FEMSA Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the George Eastman House and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and among others.

Cartagena has received several awards including the international Photolucida Critical Mass Book Award, the Street Photography Award in London Photo Festival, the Lente Latino Award in Chile, the Premio IILA-FotoGrafia Award in Rome and the Salon de la Fotografia of Fototeca de Nuevo Leon in Mexico among others. He has been named an International Discoveries of the FotoFest festival, a FOAM magazine TALENT and an Emerging photographer of PDN magazine. He has also been a finalist for the Aperture Portfolio Award and has been nominated for the Santa Fe Photography Prize, the Prix Pictet Prize, the Photoespaña Descubrimientos Award and the FOAM Paul Huff Award. His work has been published internationally in magazines and newspapers such as Newsweek, Nowness, Domus, the Financial Times, The New York Times, Le Monde, Stern, PDN, The New Yorker, and Wallpaper among others.

More wonderful attendee recordings from the 2025 Chico Review with those who came to Chico to share their work and their stories with incredible reviewers. This year I recorded with over 40 attendees! I’ve also linked to the guest’s Instagram and Websites so you can see the work. And again this year, I was recording in a variety of spaces at the beautiful Chico Hot Springs resort so there may be a number of different ambient sounds across the recordings.

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Sixty-four applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.

https://chicoreview.com

--

03:10 - Ryder Collins

https://www.instagram.com/streetphotographyisdead/

11:35 - Carey MacArthur

https://www.instagram.com/careymacarthur

19:30 - Richard Dachtera

https://www.instagram.com/richdachtera

26:50 - David Bowman

https://www.instagram.com/bowman.studio/

37:24 - Andrew Owen

https://www.instagram.com/andrewowen/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

Photographer Daniel Arnold joined me at the 2025 Chico Review. We discussed how photography became a compulsion and a means of connection, transforming his life and leading him to leave his writing job at Nickelodeon. Additionally, we talk about Daniel’s approach to assignment work and how his photo addiction has evolved over the years.

https://www.secondname.agency/photographers/daniel-arnold/portfolio_/ |||
https://www.instagram.com/arnold_daniel

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photo-book library today at: https://charcoalbookclub.com |||
https://www.chicoreview.com

Daniel Arnold's work is deeply human, with a sense of intrigue and humor that breathes fresh air into an age of extreme curation and editing. With a dynamic and versatile voice, he has covered everything from home births to high fashion, from the Met Gala to the 2016 campaign trail and multiple inaugurations. Arnold began his career documenting the streets of New York City with an innate curiosity and a wry smile that quickly gained him a cult following and frequent collaborations with the New York Times and Vogue. In 2022, he was profiled by the New Yorker in conjunction with the release of "Pickpocket," a collaborative monograph compiled by the Safdie Brothers' Elara Press. His odd, enduring photos can also be found in art galleries around the world. Arnold is based in New York.

Here are some of the recordings I made in 2025 for my second year at the Chico Review with the wonderful attendees who come to Chico to share their work and their stories with incredible reviewers. This year I recorded with over 40 attendees! I’ve also linked to the guest’s Instagram and Websites so you can see the work. And again this year, I was recording in a variety of spaces at the beautiful Chico Hot Springs resort so there may be a number of different ambient sounds across the recordings.

The Chico Review is the country’s premier Photobook Retreat. Organized by Charcoal Book Club, The Chico Review takes place over six nights at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Sixty-four applicants will spend the week with over twenty of the most influential and creative photographers, book makers, gallerists, museum curators, and photobook publishers in the industry.

https://chicoreview.com

02:00 - Joe Reynolds https://joereynoldsphotographs.com

09:55 - Darby Routtenberg

https://www.instagram.com/jointheclubsandwich/ |||| https://www.darbyrouttenberg.com

16:20 - William Stock https://www.instagram.com/stock_/

27:30 - Shin Ono

https://www.shinono.com |||| https://www.instagram.com/shin_ono/

34:40 - Sean Stout

https://www.seanfstout.com |||| https://www.instagram.com/seanfstout/

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com

Brad Zellar | Till the Wheels Fall Off

Author, editor, and photo collaborator Brad Zellar joined me at the 2025 Chico Review to talk about his life as a writer, including his work with Alec Soth and Little Brown Mushroom, and his novel, Till the Wheels Fall Off (Coffee House Press). We discussed Brad’s love of photography and how Chico and Montana have become a second home for him. Brad also shared how his early struggles with addiction and an unintentional photography grant helped him to refocus on his writing and clarify his relationship to photography. (Cover photo: Eric Ruby)

https://www.instagram.com/bradzellar/ ||| https://coffeehousepress.org/products/till-the-wheels-fall-off

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com ||| https://www.chicoreview.com

Brad Zellar has worked as a writer and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, as well as for regional and national magazines. A former senior editor at City Pages, The Rake, and Utne Reader, Zellar is also the author of Suburban World: The Norling Photos, Conductors of the Moving World, House of Coates, and Driftless. He has frequently collaborated with the photographer Alec Soth, and together they produced seven editions of The LBM Dispatch, chronicling American community life in the twenty-first century. Zellar’s work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, Paris Review, Vice, Guernica, Aperture, and Russian Esquire. He spent fifteen years working in bookstores and was a co-owner of Rag & Bone Books in Minneapolis. He currently lives in Saint Paul.