Artist Juan Brenner knows first-hand the challenges of editing and sequencing books and exhibitions from longform projects. Often working on projects for several years, and shooting hundreds of images, Brenner has published two books and held over 10 exhibitions from his longform work. His first monograph, Tonatiuh, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation First Photobook Award, was created from a pool of 300 images taken over 2 years. His second book, Genesis, published in 2024 by Guest Editions, started as 300 rolls of film, over 1,000 images, before it reached its publication size of 250 images.

During the making of Tonatiuh, Genesis, and subsequent projects, Brenner honed his skills at:

* Deciding when a project is ready to edit
* Identifying considerations for specific formats — book, exhibition, and online gallery
* Organizing an archive
* Understanding how image selection and sequence work together
* Giving your edits time to evolve
* Working with editors, curators, and designers
* Publishing your project (steps and examples)

Over this two session workshop, Juan Brenner will share his experience in wrangling longform projects into manageable shape for publishing and exhibition opportunities. In the first session, Juan will share the process he used to edit, sequence, and publish his first two books, with an emphasis on the process for Genesis, and including a look at the book dummies for Tonatiuh and how they evolved. Also in the first session, Brenner and Aurora PhotoCenter’s Mary Goodwin will discuss how they curated the exhibition Genesis, on view in Aurora’s Main Gallery during the workshop. In the second session, participants will get hands-on by editing their projects with Juan and the group. By the end of the workshop, each participant will have a first-draft edit of their book or exhibition project. Along the way, participants will gain insight into how longterm photographic projects are developed by the artist, and how he turned his work into successful career opportunities.

After registration, we will contact you to get a sense of your project and goals for the workshop. Each participant will bring a set of 40 images from one project, preferably as 4 x 6 work prints, to edit with the workshop.

Registration is first come, first served. Participants are responsible for all travel to, from, and during the workshop.

A self-taught photographer, Juan Brenner lives and works in Guatemala City. After working in New York as a fashion photographer for over a decade, Brenner returned to his native Guatemala where he began making work about the people and complex territory in the country’s Western Highlands. Juan uses photography to reflect on the fluidity and abstract nature of identity and territory. His images capture the complexities of cultural hybridization and, more poignantly, the way power, hierarchical structures and inequality are instrumentally continued through time. Brenner’s first monograph, Tonatiuh, was shortlisted for the 2019 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award. For the same project, he was a winner of LensCulture’s 2019 Emerging Talent Award. His works have been featured in publications including Aperture, British Journal of Photography, Le Monde, VICE, C-41, Aint Bad, Fisheye, Booooooom, California Sunday Magazine, Paper Journal, Collector Daily, I-D Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Pardo, Loupe, Palm Studios, Metal Magazine, Musee, JOIA and Balam Magazine. He is also a founding member of Proyectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala City.