Finding, Transmitting, Receiving

An important and compelling document of the work of one of the world’s foremost contemporary photographers, Finding, Transmitting, Receiving features both widely known and never-before-seen images, found family portraits and childhood drawings, as well as the complete scripts for her
film projects.

Collins, who divides her time between Barcelona and London, is celebrated for her large-scale installations and films. Winner of the prestigious European Photography Award and short listed for the Turner Prize, she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and has held professorships at the University of California at Davis and the Royal College of Art in London.

Her projects include work in the former Eastern Bloc, with gypsy communities in Barcelona and in a remote village during a Russian winter, as well as other lengthy involvements in wide-ranging locations. All of these, through Collins' work, create a broad canvas on which to contemplate the human condition.

In each place Collins documents the omnipresence of a universal modernism and the global features of modernity. At the same time, her lens reveals the cracks and fissures through which the ancient and the culturally specific become visible. Homelessness, migration and the global effects of shifting economic patterns are recurring themes in her work, as is the power of place and architecture to communicate historic events.

A comprehensive look at this fascinating artist, Finding, Transmitting, Receiving brings a breadth of vision and understanding to Collins' work, giving readers the chance to discover photographs and films that are in collections scattered worldwide. The book coincides with the completion of her most recent film project 'Current History' and will complement a major forthcoming exhibition of Collins' work at the Fundacion La Caixa in Barcelona and Madrid.

With an introduction by Iwona Blazwick, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London and a critic, lecturer and broadcaster on contemporary art.