paper cameras press, a publishing project, develops and prints co-authored curricula for studying photography practices and reimagining modalities of capture.

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paper cameras press holds photography accountable for the medium’s legacy of extractive capture, while it carries forward practices rooted in loving observation and aspires towards self-determined documentation. Each issue’s curriculum—its lessons, language, and tools—responds to the terms set by its co-authors, and each issue's practice—its printed props and paper cameras—invites readers to set their own scene for study.

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paper cameras press is organized by Katie Giritlian and is built while longing for the vibrant SWANA photo studio webs nested in homelands and scattered beyond in diaspora.¹ Though paper cameras press produces curricula beyond this cultural and geographic scope, the imagining necessary for the press’s occurrence is inextricable from the possibilities forged by these studios and the pathways established by their cooperative processes.

paper cameras press formally commits to adhering to the Palestinian international call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and to complying with the guidelines of the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

We stand in total solidarity with the people of Palestine, who continue to struggle for liberation against the ongoing genocidal violence of Western imperial and Zionist powers.

Even though we are a small press with currently just 1 worker, we are active participants in memory work, archival stewardship, and the field of photography—all of which are webbed into institutional fabrics that have historically been weaponized by imperial actors to manufacture consent for genocide. Thus we, both as individuals and with our larger connective capacities, commit to not crossing the international picket line for Palestine. Specifically, we commit—where applicable—to:

• Boycott any cultural product commissioned by an official Israeli body;
  
• Boycott any cultural product funded by an official Israeli body, even if not commissioned;
  
• Boycott any cultural event that is partially or fully sponsored or funded by an official Israeli body;
• Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration, or joint projects with Israeli institutions, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to/from these institutions;
• Refrain from hosting or circulating any events or cultural products operating under the auspices of “normalization”, or which advance a false symmetry between oppressed and oppressor;
• Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.