V&A Photobook Symposium, 25 November 2026

Sasha Kurmaz (b. 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist and photographer from Kyiv, Ukraine. He uses photography, video, artist’s book production, collaborative and participatory practices, performative interaction, and intervention in public space in his artistic practice. His work focuses on urban space, society, its development, and transformations, collective and personal trauma, the impact of war on personal and group identities, and the dynamics of relationships between the individual and the power structures. His work has been published in a wide range of international magazines, including Liberation, Kometa, Vice, Forbes, Krytyka Polityczna, Bloomberg Businessweek, FOAM, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Die ZEIT. He holds a master’s degree in design from the National Academy of Managerial Staff of Culture and Arts in Kyiv (2008). He has participated in a range of exhibitions across Europe, including Museum de Fundatie (the Netherlands), Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski (Poland), ZKM Center for Art and Media (Germany), Foto Arsenal Wien (Austria), DOX Centre for Contemporary Art (Czech Republic), Centrum för fotografi CFF (Sweden), C/O Berlin (Germany), and more.

Janet Delaney is a fine art photographer focused on the social dynamics of urban life. Her books include South of Market (2013), documenting gentrification of her San Francisco neighborhood, Public Matters (2018), capturing public life during the Reagan era; and Red Eye to New York (2021), portraying 1980s Manhattan. She is working on a sequel to South of Market, focusing on tech’s impact on her former neighborhood, and recently released, Too Many Products, Too Much Pressure, about her father’s life as a mid-20th-century Los Angeles salesman. Delaney received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 and three NEA Grants. Her work is held in major institutions including SFMOMA, the deYoung Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and the High Museum. She has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad. Delaney earned her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and taught at UC Berkeley, where she lives and works.

Hoda Afshar (b. 1983) is a visual artist whose practice focuses on the intricate relationships between politics and aesthetics, knowledge and representation, visibility and violence. She is interested in the ways that image-making can either reinforce or challenge our common sense, and the forces that shape perception. Her works invite audiences to reflect on and to rethink how and what we see, often by drawing attention to parts of the political and visible order that have previously been excluded.

Please note: A pre-recorded film clip of Hoda speaking about her book ‘The Fold’ will be played as part of Lewis Chaplin’s presentation. Hoda is not able to join us in person.

Lewis Chaplin (b. 1992) is a British book-maker and graphic designer based in Marseille, France. In 2014, he co-founded Loose Joints, a multi-award-winning publishing house and 2 design studio, with Sarah Chaplin Espenon. In 2021, Loose Joints opened Ensemble, a bookshop and gallery in Marseille. Loose Joints collaborates with artists on contemporary photography books, managing design, editing, and production in-house. Their publications won the Aperture–ParisPhoto PhotoBook Award in 2025, 2024, 2022, and 2020. Loose Joints also operates as a graphic design studio. Previously, Chaplin co-organized Copeland Book Market, cofounded publisher fourteen-nineteen, and was senior designer at MACK.