Giorgia Basch

Prix du Livre des Rencontres d’Arles 2025 Bibi Tomasi’s Al cerchio delle tue mani published by @bilderatlas has been awarded the Special Mention of the Historical Book Awards of the Prix du Livre des Rencontres d’Arles 2025 ❤️ A feminist adventure, indeed! Grateful and proud that the work of Bibi Tomasi, and her documentation of the Italian feminist movement, is receiving attention, and to see our goal of spreading feminist knowledge and women’s art being achieved day by day. Our heartfelt thanks to @rencontresarles , the @fondation_janmichalski , and the Prix du Livre 2025 commission. The warmest thank you also to all our collaborators that made this book possibile. Al cerchio delle tue mani will be on display at the Prix du Livre 2025 exhibition at LUMA @luma_arles at Mécanique Générale until October 2025, and available through @leporello.books at the Arles Books Fair on July 8-12 at Collège Saint-Charles @ensp.arles . If you are not in Arles, you can get your copies on bilderatlas.com, and through our stockists worldwide. They are going fast! [Publishing; Curatorial and editorial direction; Public speaking; Archives] #PrixduLivreArles #BilderAtlas #EightPoemsby #BibiTomasi

Cara Lia, questa foto di te, di spalle, l’ho scattata in una delle numerose riunioni in libreria. Col tempo questa inquadratura ha assunto un significato particolare: dietro di te, per seguirti con fiducia e ammirazione, mentre mi e ci mostravi come rivolgere lo sguardo sempre al futuro, con curiosità viva e ottimismo; un balzo in avanti rispetto al ticchettio del tempo, sapevi leggere con appassionato rigore le situazioni del mondo e quelle tra le pieghe delle relazioni. Alla radio ieri ho voluto ricordare quel pomeriggio nella tua casa milanese in cui abbiamo parlato di femminismo non ideologico, e della Preziose, tra una sigaretta e l’altra e il trillo del telefono. La tua copia di Lettere a Voltaire di Madame du Deffand fu una piccola rivelazione: sulla mediazione tra uomo e donna, su cui hai lavorato sempre intensamente, sul valore politico del dialogo, del dibattito a due, per liberarsi delle parole logore, come le chiamavi tu, e inventarne di nuove. Sull’arte della conversazione e la conversazione nell’arte ci ho scritto una tesi, a cui non sarei mai arrivata senza la tua presenza. Esattamente 6 anni fa ho varcato la soglia della Libreria delle donne per cercare delle risposte, e ho trovato te, nei tuoi abiti neri, e un invito a restare. Quell’incontro - e gli altri incontri che ha generato - ha cambiato la mia vita perché ha cambiato il mio sguardo sulle cose e su di me. Partire da sé è rivolgere quello sguardo verso il profondo, nel calderone dei desideri, e trovare lo slancio per metterli al mondo. Nel farlo, ho compreso che la libertà, che a te dava “l’emozione dell’infinito come il mare e il deserto”, è una questione innanzitutto soggettiva. E perciò vivere da donne libere e vincenti non significa quasi mai fare ciò che è giusto, ma fare ciò che è giusto per noi. È lasciarsi alle spalle, dietro le mie, la banalità delle generalizzazioni per poter abbracciare ciò che più amiamo, senza permettere a nessuno di rimpicciolirci. Si apre così un luogo di libertà relazionale, un’agorà per l’agire in comune che risalta le nostre singolarità. Grazie per la tua lucidità, la tua energia e l’autorità femminile che ci hai trasmesso. Ci mancherai immensamente

When I am looking for answers about human relationships, Hélène Cixous never fails to answer poignantly. Le Rire de la Méduse, her foundational essay from 1975, has inspired this month’s episode of BilderAtlas Sounds. It’s a collection of musical moments that have touched me in these past months — fragments of encounters that made me question the roles we play in the ever-shifting game of love and desire. Cixous’ Gorgon, the powerful and terrifying woman, is “beautiful, and laughing.” As she gets older, she rejuvenates. She radiates jouissance, a psychic energy that refuses to be contained. And that is all we need. Here’s a quote from the book I particularly love: “Beauty will no longer be forbidden. I wished that that woman would write and proclaim this unique empire so that other women, other unacknowledged sovereigns, might exclaim: I, too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body knows unheard-of songs. Time and again I, too, have felt so full of luminous torrents that I could burst, burst with forms much more beautiful than those which are put up in frames and sold for a stinkin fortune. And I, too, said nothing, showed nothing; I didn’t open my mouth, I didn’t repaint my half of the world. I was ashamed. I wa afraid, and I swallowed my shame and my fear. I said to myself: You are mad!” Sounds is available to listen on our Spotify channel. Stream it, share it and enjoy it! [Music curation; sound design; editorial direction; Literature]

Art Direction Behind the scenes at @juliekegels FW26 Show “Face Value” in Paris with @mariedehe 🖤 Creative direction @juliekegels Photography @mariedehe Art direction @jo.basch @bilderatlas Style @airtomyearth Make Up @ingegrognard Hair @louisghewy Casting @monika_domarke Scenography @noemiorgaer Jewelry @izabo_ Eyewear @theoeyewear Press @mariefournie [Art direction; Photography]

Behind the scenes at @juliekegels FW26 Show “Face Value” in Paris with @mariedehe 🤍 Creative direction @juliekegels Photography @mariedehe Art direction @jo.basch @bilderatlas Style @airtomyearth Make Up @ingegrognard Hair @louisghewy Casting @monika_domarke Scenography @noemiorgaer Jewelry @izabo_ Eyewear @theoeyewear Press @mariefournie [Art direction; Photography]

Art Direction Behind the scenes at @juliekegels FW26 Show “Face Value” in Paris with @mariedehe 🤍 Creative direction @juliekegels Photography @mariedehe Art direction @jo.basch @bilderatlas Style @airtomyearth Make Up @ingegrognard Hair @louisghewy Casting @monika_domarke Scenography @noemiorgaer Jewelry @izabo_ Eyewear @theoeyewear Press @mariefournie [Art direction; Photography]

We are delighted to present the research of our Founding Director Giorgia Basch @jo.basch at the @forarthistory 2026 Annual Conference, taking place on 8–10 April 2026 at the University of Cambridge. “Messengers of Desire. Bookness in the Art of Barbara Bloom and Claire Fontaine” is part of the Session “Book-Objects: Bookness and artmaking” by Session Convenor Giulia Schirripa @giu_schir , University of York. The paper examines bookness in contemporary art by exploring what grants books their allure and their capacity to act as carriers of meaning and desire. What if we were to regard these objects not merely for their aesthetic or symbolic value, but as intermediaries between people – agents of relation, memory, and exchange? Both conceptual American artist Barbara Bloom and the Italy-based artistic collective Claire Fontaine use the book as a generator of relationships, constructing a visual and conceptual system that intertwines and disrupts the authorship of writers, the ownership of readers-spectators, and more broadly the idea of books as vessels of knowledge. 
Through sculptural facsimiles and by foregrounding the material and visual language of book covers, their practices reconsider the ontology of the book – its function, form, and symbolic charge – while subverting its structure and replenishing it with new figures and notions. Drawing a parallel between the two practices, this paper will argue that by transforming books into re-materialised and relational objects, artists redefine what it means to become informed, to possess, and to desire through art. Portrait: @claramelchiorre Other images: © Barbara Bloom, Claire Fontaine, 2026. #BilderAtlas #AHHConference2026

Femme de Venise Portraits of me by talented friend @claramelchiorre 🤍

She is beyond good and evil Portraits of me by dearest @claramelchiorre 🤍

Practice / Process Notes and visions during the archival research of the past months at the National Swiss Library, in preparation for Doris Stauffer’s Hexenkurse, one of the upcoming photo books of @bilderatlas ’ editorial series Eight Poems by. Love diving into experimental education practices and new perspectives on photography through Doris’ work and that of the F+F Schule’s other founding members. Team work is the best work! [Publishing; Curatorial and editorial direction; Archives]

Practice / Process Are witches born, or are they made? Notes and visions during the archival research of the past months at the National Swiss Library, in preparation for Doris Stauffer’s Hexenkurse, one of the upcoming photo books of @bilderatlas ’ editorial series Eight Poems by. Love diving into experimental education practices and new perspectives on photography through Doris’ work. A witch is one who dares to embrace a newly awakened self-confidence – an awareness of one’s strength, power, intuition and humanity. [Publishing; Curatorial and editorial direction; Archives]

I took this image before moving into my new apartment. I hardly take photographs at present, but images by others are the constellations of my days. Even much so this year, that thanks to some beautiful projects and encounters has been incredible, rewarding, powerful. Here’s to making new-old photographs visibile, collectible and cherished in 2026, and to finding love within ourselves and with others through the passions that guide us.