'We the children' – a project by UNICEF Deutschland, GEO and Edition Lammerhuber presented at Frankfurt Book Fair 2014
The UN convention on children’s rights will celebrate its 25th anniversary on 20 November 2014 and “We the Children“ the book celebrates this birthday. 45 top international photographers share their moving and awareness raising photo reportages of the lives of children from 42 countries. In touching, sometimes shocking images, “We the Children“ presents how children grow up, what they wish for and how their basic rights are revoked. The worldwide photo reportages in this photo book have a message. It is: “look and take action!” UNICEF ambassador Sabine Christiansen commented at the book launch at Frankfurt Book Fair.
Visitors to the book fair were welcomed with ten large format posters at the entrance. ARD and Hessischer Rundfunk showed interest, Austrian Cultural Minister Josef Ostermayer visited the stall as did Frankfurt Mayor Peter Feldmann, TV celebrities such as Marie-Luise ¬Marjan and Sabine Christiansen sat on the podium, joined by politician Tom Koenigs and international photographers such as Chris de Bode, Patricia Willocq and Henri-Nannen Award Winner Kai Löffelbein.
However, the stall shared by the publishers and UNICEF was at its busiest when 250 ‘book pilots’, boys and girls from local schools, turned up. They were there to see “We the Children“, a project by UNICEF, GEO and Edition Lammerhuber publishing to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN children’s rights convention. The almost 300 page strong book, edited by Peter-Matthias Gaede, long-term GEO editor in chief, and Jürgen Heraeus, Chairman UNICEF Deutschland, presents photo reports from 42 countries, acting as a to do list for the international united nations, a plea for implementing the fundamental rights of children, such as protection from violence and exploitation, and the right to education and health.
Frankfurt school kids spent two turbulent hours congregated amongst the large format photos, learning about the current situation for Syrian children. A copy of the book was covered with personal messages and sent to UNO Gerneral Secretary Ban Ki-moon. The book hopes to raise maximum awareness by being published in German/English and is also accompanied by a hashtag campaign #WetheChildren.
It serves as a “stark reminder of what needs to be top priority on the world family’s agenda”, Gaede writes in his foreword to the book created thanks to the support and work of top international photographers. “Over the past few years the UNICEF international Photo of the Year competition has awarded some outstanding photo reportages, the book is based on these winning works”, says Lois Lammerhuber, publisher and photographer. Since 2000 UNICEF Deutschland and GEO magazine hold an annual competition to award photo reportages that make an exceptional contribution to raising awareness of children’s plights all over the world. “We believe in the power of the photo book and that in our digital age of image bombardment this traditional means of presentation will appeal to people and mobilise them”, says Lois Lammerhuber.
We the Children. 25 years UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Christiane Breustedt, Kerstin Bücker Peter-Matthias Gaede, Jürgen Heraeus . 24 x 30 cm, German, English, 296 pages 164 photos by 45 photographers, Hardcover, French Fold jacket, ISBN 978-3-901753-74-9, EUR 49,90 .edition.lammerhuber.at/buecher/we-the-children
CREDITS
Photographer © Marcus Bleasdale/VII Photo Agency
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Dear fans of beautiful and sophisticated books,
“An extraordinary publisher, dedicated to little known themes, who presents them with courage and high quality, without descending into stereotypes.” This is how the jury of the FEP European Book Prize of the Year Awards argued their choice of Edition Lammerhuber for Best Publisher 2017, an accolade also awarded to the publisher from Baden bei Wien in the preceding competitions in 2013 and 2015 of this biennial event.
Present on the book market for more than seven years, with a steadily growing programme, we have worked our way to the top – internationally. Your are best at what you love doing. And we love books, we love photography. The photobook is the ideal medium to combine these loves. Photography documents the world in a very particular way and shapes human memory like no other medium does. Our ambition is twofold: We want to publish books with fascinating themes from art and science, with excellent photography, sophisticated texts and brilliant authors, but, most of all, we want to make books that have something to say, books that transport important themes into the heart of society. For us, a book charged with emotional photography is a point of reference for communication that reverberates far beyond the number of sold copies. We believe that we can make a real impact with a book. For us, a book is not just a commodity but an incomparable cultural technique.
Edition Lammerhuber wants to be the publisher for writer-photographers, for whom seeing is a vocation and whose ways of seeing the world is a process of insights. A process they are capable of transforming into the immediacy of a photograph, a creative act, initiated and completed within seconds or split seconds. As in the motto of Hungarian photographic artist László Moholy-Nagy, who declared, “Photography is there to make the visible visible.” Edition Lammerhuber strives to be home to the best ‘cyclops’ of our time, legends and new talents alike.
And how does an Edition Lammerhuber book come about? The theme must be important to us, the photography captivate us, there must be something special, magical, in the pictures. Once a decision has been made to publish, the photographer visits us at our publishing house. We go through the photographic material, determine the format of the book, think about a setting to suit the theme. This is when the almost magical process of designing and layouting starts. It usually takes about a week for the concept to be completed to the point where the work of everyone involved can be browsed on-screen, then it passes on to the next steps in the production.
Our declared aim is to approach a perfect book through a passionate creative process. Craft aspects are an essential part of it and of our publishing philosophy. All production steps up to the printing are done in our house. Our own experts produce the prepress. We really care about the reproduction quality of the photographs, the feel of the printed papers and the quality of the binding. We check every single printing form.
So it is hardly surprising that some reviewers call the books of Edition Lammerhuber pieces of art emanating from a ‘book chamber of marvels’ and that nearly all titles gather awards, including those of the Art Directors Club New York, the Deutsche Fotobuchpreis, the Pictures of the Year International (POYI) Awards, USA, the Visa d’or, France, the FEP European Book Prize of the Year Awards or the World Press Photo. Today our books are available in more than 170 countries, usually published in two, sometimes three, languages.
Exceptional photography is not only found in the books of Edition Lammerhuber but also in a photo competition jointly initiated in Vienna in 2013 by Edition Lammerhuber and the Photographische Gesellschaft. Under the general heading What Does Peace Look Like? , the Alfred Fried Photography Award, worth 10 000 euros, chooses the peace image of the year. Participation in the award has exploded in recent years, confirming the status of photography as a medium for transporting essential socio-political themes. From 2017, a separate competition for the peace image of the year is open to children up to the age of 14.
At the biennial LUMIX Festival in Hannover, the Lammerhuber Photography Award for young photo journalists is presented, with a prize money of 5000 euros. Photography and the photobook are an essential, defining, medium for society and for our publishing house. This is why we believe it is important to encourage young photographic talent.
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Yours
Silvia Lammerhuber and Lois Lammerhuber
Publisher
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