NUÑEZ is an artists' photobook that uses history’s canon as well as cultural heritage as a point of research into identity. Motivated by a practice in placing oneself into a space or historical narrative, the artists weave traditional portraiture and conceptual abstraction to articulate complexities, and destruction, in the loss of identity through forced African diaspora. This considered photo-essay also acts as a personal but inviting visual dialogue between the two female artists and friends, photographer Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher and subject Nuñez Rojas, creating an exploration and critical conversation for viewers.

Accessible and loosely bound, the book is made of sequential layouts curated to depict the series' true documentation to place the viewer at the heart of the visual and momentary exchange between the two women. Portraits that are intentionally similar side by side but speak at nuanced variation through the slight expression shifts or dictated camera movements to spotlight human experience, reflection, energy and multilayered diversity one person harnesses. The analogue photographs – not shying away from flaws – speak further to the truth of the spontaneity guided by twofold instinct, play and synergy. Direct but gentle, the work quietly commands offering an openness engaging with one viewer in a different way to another, furthermore utilising freeform binding to encourage viewers to uniquely explore layers and meaning. Ultimately the series aims to highlight connection, viewpoints and attempted self/other understanding.

52 pages + 16 page insert, 28 x 22 cm, softcover with elastic bind, self-published (Melbourne).