Cousins by Kristen Joy Emack

Design: Teresa Piardi

Text by: Dr. Alisa Victoria Prince

Size of the book: 17 x 24 cm

96 pages – tritone printing

Soft cover + jacket

Published in English

First Edition 750 copies

ISBN: 978-88-945155-8-9

“I’ve been photographing my daughter and nieces for a decade. There’s something sacred about the lives of girls, and their innocent, confident relationships to themselves, their world and one another is gravitational. Between them is an intimate and spiritual knowledge, both ordinary and extraordinary, and I aim to capture the brilliance of their communion. I hope when they look back on this work, they’ll see their beauty, and their devotion to each other, and find themselves here, in this work we made together, reflected with love.“ Kristen Joy Emack 

On a whim, I reached out to Kristen on Instagram, and inquired about buying a copy of her newest book. Never did I think this friendly outreach to a colleague would cement the makings of my own book. The introduction she provided to her publisher, L’Artiere, was the foundation of them publishing my first book. Perhaps serendipity, perhaps fate. But never the less, Cousins was the reason.

Getting to watch someone grow up in front of a lens is a gift. The unspoken communication among this family is evident through the rituals they share. Seen through a mother’s eyes, but still making the work critical and evident, is no small feat. Kristen Joy Emack succeeds at this brilliantly.

This beautiful project is without a doubt, one of my top 5 favorite books of the year. In it, Kristen, an analog photographer based in Boston, chronicles the lives of her daughter Apple, and her daughter’s cousins. These frames, refulgent with light, water and trees, are a seminal gaze at the romance of time spent with family. Kristen is able to untie the gordian knot of how to photograph family. She does so freely and without pretense. The pictures in Cousins are joyful and romantic. Not unlike the Friedlander pictures of Maria, these thrum with gentle affection.

Even the design of the book itselg feels like a child’s notebook. But don’t let it’s accessible size fool you. It is a powerful tome. It is no wonder that this remarkable body of work earned Kristen a rarified accolade, a Guggenheim Fellowship, on her first application. This is something very few artists have done, myself included. So do yourself a favor. Run, don’t walk to your browser and buy a copy of Cousins here.