The lady reader

Sara Knelman writes, curates and collects pictures of lady readers. [email protected]

[saraknelman]

Pure Beads of Life

I've written about Sara Angelucci's luminous Nocturnal Botanicals project for the Fall 2025 issue of Ciel Variable.

[saraknelman]

Off the Wall

I wrote about photographic exhibition & display, with David Campany, for the Design issue of Aperture magazine.

[saraknelman]

Lady Readers

I made a small book of some of my lady reader photographs, designed and painstakingly assembled by the wonderful Daniel Alexander, published by Ottoby Press, and in conjunction with the 2024 edition of Peckham 24.

[saraknelman]

Lives of Documents

For Aperture, I reviewed the first of a 3-part exhibition drawn from the vast and fascinating photo collection at the Centre for Canadian Architecture.

[saraknelman]

Hummingbirds or hamburgers or love

I had the honour of writing a small text for Double Double, Protein Style, Animal Style, with a Strawberry Shake and Chips, the extraordinary book by Wyatt Conlon.

[saraknelman]

Feminist Futures

Delighted to contribute to Aperture’s Utopia issue with an essay on feminism, collage and the possibility of change. I also moderated a related talk with Alanna Fields, Felicity Hammond and Lissa Rivera, part of Aperture Conversations. 

[saraknelman]

A World History of Women Photographers

I have contributed texts on E Jane Gay, Marianne Wex and Bunny Yeager to this survey of women photographers - originally published in French (Editions Textuel) and shortly available in English (Thames & Hudson).

[saraknelman]

Bindi Vora, Mountain of Salt

I wrote about Bindi Vora's voluminous pandemic text-image collage archive for Trigger no. 3, FOMU's platform for publication platform.

[saraknelman]

She Unfolds: exhibition online

She Unfolds, an exhibition about women as readers and writers, is now online. It includes a selection from my collection of photographs of women reading alongside new work by Alessandra Aballe. 

[saraknelman]

Recent Advancements: Jimmy Limit

Delighted to have my essay “The Surface of the Museum” included in this new monograph on the work of artist Jimmy Limit. 

[saraknelman]

Dress for What Job?

As millions file for unemployment, a large-scale exhibition explores the meanings of workwear.

[saraknelman]

Curator’s Reading List

A few readings in relation to my thinking about Thirza Schaap’s project Plastic Ocean, which will be presented as a public installation in Dupont Subway station as part of the 2021 Contact Photography Festival. 

[saraknelman]

She Unfolds

Delighted to be showing a few photographs from my collection of women reading in She Unfolds, an exhibition at Ryerson Artspace about women as readers and writers, alongside new work by Alessandra Abballe. The show will be on view again when it is safe for the gallery to reopen. 

[saraknelman]

The Terror and Pleasure of Staying at Home

Revisiting the 1991 MoMA Exhibition The Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, for Aperture Magazine’s “House & Home” issue. 

[saraknelman]

Sondra Meszaros: Redrawing Power and Pleasure

An essay on the aesthetics and power dynamics of gender and sexuality in the work of Sondra Meszaros, for 1,000 Words.

[saraknelman]

Exhibition as Object and Image

An essay on the exhibition as object, for the publication accompanying Momenta Biennale de l’Image 2019: The Life of Things

[saraknelman]

Rye New Gen: Images for the Future

An essay for the publication accompanying the exhibition Rye New Gen, with work by Zinnia Naqvi, Curtiss Randolph, Sam Cotter, Wynne Neilly and Ethan Murphy, Ryerson Artspace, September 27-October 26, 2019