The Hobbyist

What happens when photographers and artists incorporate hobbies into their work as a means of challenging established practices and hierarchies? How do hobbyists represent their passions photographically, particularly today, in our era of digital communication and cell phone cameras? The Hobbyist is the first major publication to explore the relationship between photography and hobby culture, in connection both to the photographing of hobbies and to photography as a hobby. From the hippy cultures and avant-garde tendencies of the 1960s through the DIY culture of the 1980s to today’s maker movement, The Hobbyist explores photography’s engagement with a wide variety of lively, often quirky obsessions. The book, produced in a magazine format to accompany an exhibition at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, brings together short anecdotal texts, artist interview, in-depth essays and works by Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, Bill Owens, Chris Burden and Mike Mandel.