ZEKE Fall 2019

of how to use their bodies. A bedrock foundation
of patriarchy is the historic societal
expectation (read obligation) for all
women to bear children. Author Rebecca
Solnit challenges this restrictive definition
of womanhood in her book, The Mother
of All Questions, when she spotlights this
implicit mandate put upon the female
gender; “Woman, who must marry, must
breed, must let men in and babies out, like
some elevator for the species…Brains are
individual phenomena producing wildly
varying products: uteruses bring forth one
kind of creation.”
Donna Ferrato has changed the universal
landscape for all victims of domestic
violence, the millions of women, men and
children affected on a daily basis. The state
of Massachusetts claimed intimate-partner
violence as a public health emergency
in 2008, noting it’s correlation to, and
creation of, a complex matrix of related
social, psychological and medical crises.
Mental health, incarceration, family and
children services buckle under the staggering
numbers of people affected by domestic
violence. Ferrato established the Domestic
Abuse Project in 1979 with a mission to
eradicate domestic violence and create
communities where families experience
healthy, safe and equal relationships. In
2014 she launched a campaign for women
who left abusers called, I Am Unbeatable.
Two bodies of work from Holy are
currently being exhibited as part of Photo
Espana. At seventy years of age, Ferrato is
as driven to create positive societal change
today as when she began forty years ago.
She has heard and amplified the collective
voices of women internationally. She
photographs the contemporary reality of
women demanding equal representation
in, and protection by, governmental law
in multiple countries. Author Ursula K. Le
Guin succinctly states the power of such
fundamental change. “We are volcanoes.
When we women offer our experience as
our truth, all the maps change. There are
new mountains.” Ferrato’s dedication to
create a true visual narrative contributed
to our current explosion which is altering
our communal landscape. Ferrato knew
what was real all along—woman, on her
own is sacred and wholly. Individually and
collectively we are unbeatable.
—J. Sybylla Smith
A FIELD GUIDE TO
ASBESTOS
By Louie Palu
Essay by Alison Nordström
Yoffy
72 pages | $25.00
Often the
goal of
writing
a book review is
to comment on
the contents of a
book. The book
as an object is
invisible — a
container for the
contents, such as a shoebox holding a
pair of ruby slippers. Louie Palu turns
this on its head with A Field Guide to
Asbestos. This is certainly not a book
of Palu’s photographs, although his
photos are used in the book. A Field
Guide to Asbestos is performance art. It
nominally takes the form of a field guide
where we might expect to see images of
plants and insects, but instead he pours
in content of all types relating to the
destructive consequences to the soft tissues
of the human body when exposed
to the silicate asbestos, most often used
in building materials as a shield for fire,
and most tragically resulting in slow
death as a result of long-term exposure.
Palu is no longer in his comfort zone
here. In the past, he has made a career of
making extraordinary images of mine workers
and soldiers to tell complex stories about
the heroic and dangerous work that people
must do to survive. Now he has entered the
world of conceptual art, creating an object,
a book, to tell a story of asbestos, no less
dangerous and no less destructive than war
or deep underground mining.
For most of the history of photography,
a photo book began with the rectangular
photograph that would impart meaning by
a combination of its representational and
formal qualities. The representational qualities
might be the face of a US Marine in
Afghanistan or a miner in Quebec—both
subjects of Louie Palu’s earlier work. The
formal qualities might be contrast, use of
color (or not), scale, perspective, focus—all
of which Palu has shown mastery of with
his previous work.
Enter the photo book of today. Now, the
rather limited variables available to a photographer
are exponentially expanded by
the choices available to a book designer-
-sequence, typography, paper stock, binding,
concept, etc. While in the past, these
elements were subservient to the content,
today they are the content.
The first impression of A Field Guide
to Asbestos is the size and materials. It
is small—it can almost fit in the palm of
one’s hand. The cover is stiff paper without
a photo, as if it was an industrial field
manual. The book begins with a snapshot,
clearly not by Palu, taken in 1952 of youthful
Harold and Blayne Kinart at their home
in Ontario, Canada. Turning the page,
the next photo is of a skeletal Blayne, 52
years later having pain medication patches
applied on his back by his wife Sandy.
(Blayne died in 2004 of mesothelioma
from exposure to asbestos — the process of
which Palu powerfully documents.)
On page 3 begins the most traditional
element of a photo book — the essay. In
this case it is a smart and informative one
by Alison Nordström who does a brilliant
job dissecting the tragedy of asbestos in
recent human history and critiquing the
book as an object.
The book progresses with photos by Palu
of people who have been exposed to, and
in many cases devastated by asbestos in
Canada, the US, and in India; remarkable
images of asbestos mining waste; interviews
with experts on asbestos; historical
photos of asbestos in use; an essay by the
photographer; and closes with a series of
color snapshots (not by Palu) of people who
eventually died from exposure to asbestos.
The closing sentence of Palu’s essay, the
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