This Alabaster Grave is Cengiz Yar’s first monograph exploring the overwhelming destruction and pain faced by the Iraqi city of Mosul, within the context of its history and unique, now largely ruined, architecture. The book questions the cost of the fight against ISIS and global war on terror as told through the lives and city that bore the brunt of its destructive force.

The photographs were made between 2015 and 2023 and fluctuate between reportage and moments of contemplation.

The book includes a foreword from Azmat Khan, an essay by Campbell MacDiarmid, and a pullout map. It is designed by Jason Koxvold of Gnomic Book and written in both English and Arabic.

Near the end of the show Michael also asks Cengiz about his time in Minnesota during the height of the ICE protests.

https://www.cengizyar.com

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com

Cengiz is a documentary photographer and editor based in El Paso, Texas.

Cengiz has worked in visual journalism for over a decade, from reporting in the field to building groundbreaking online packages. He is currently a visuals editor at ProPublica, where he edits, photographs, and art-directs stories across the site. His primary focus is visual coverage of projects in the Midwest, Southwest, and Texas. Before joining ProPublica, he edited for publications like Rest of World, Roads & Kingdoms, and the Guardian.

As a photographer his work has primarily focused on human migration and the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. He is the inaugural recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a Dart Center Ochberg Fellow in Journalism and Trauma. His photography clients include Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, WIRED, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Instagram, Google, UNHCR, and The New York Times among others. He is HEFAT, RISC, and FAA drone pilot certified.

His first monograph, This Alabaster Grave, was published in 2025 by Ocotillo Press.

In 2025 Lily Colman took on the initiative to start her own publishing non-profit, FRAME/SEQUENCE, through fiscal sponsorship with CultureWorks of Philadelphia. FRAME/SEQUENCE is a quarterly print periodical spotlighting underrepresented and emerging photographers, writers, artists, and communities across Philadelphia and Greater Pennsylvania — connecting art, story, and place in a uniquely intimate and enduring form.

FRAME/SEQUENCE’s first edition, On Motherhood, captures motherhood’s diverse and powerful experiences through art and storytelling. This collection highlights the complex realities of nurturing, sacrifice, mourning, and celebration, offering a platform to voices often unheard.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - Begin Building your dream photobook library today at:

https://charcoalbookclub.com

https://www.frame-sequence.com

https://www.lilycolman.com

https://hmcooper.com/home.html

https://www.keavyhandleybyrne.com

Keavy Handley-Byrne is a photographic artist, writer, and educator. Their work has been exhibited across the United States and included in numerous publications. Their photographic practice focuses on themes of queer identity, grief, and the intersections therein. They are based in New York City and work across the tri-state area.

Helen Maurene Cooper, is an artist and educator living in Philadelphia, PA. She earned a MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Bard College.

Selected exhibitions include; Onomatopee(Eindhoven, Netherlands), Clare Morris Gallery ( Ireland), Soap Factory (Minneapolis), Space Mountain (Miami), and Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation (Chicago). Awards and Fellowships include; the Cultural Council of Eindhoven, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and University of Chicago.

Her 2017 monograph, Paint & Polish: Visual Economy and Visual Culture from the West Side (Onomatopee, Eindhoven Netherlands). Paint & Polish was reviewed in Bust.com, New City, Nails Magazine and the Creators Vice Magazine. Artists' talks have been given at PS1, The Fashion Institute of Technology, Kansas City Art Institute, Elmhurst Art Museum, The Arts Incubator at University of Chicago and Oxbow School of Painting. In 2021, Cooper founded Vanity Tintype, a commercial tintype studio in Philadelphia, through which she has done cultural commissions from The African American Museum of Philadelphia and Monument lab.

Lily Madeleine Colman is a film-based photographer and educator from Philadelphia, PA. She makes work about womanhood, inheritance, and specifically how certain items and feelings are passed down between generations of women.

Lily was featured in the 2021 International Juried Exhibition at The Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, NJ, where she was awarded First Prize and a Solo Exhibition. Her solo exhibition, The Knots on the Underside of the Carpet, ran from April 22 - June 4, 2022, at the CCA.

Lily graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with her MFA in 2020, as well as a Certificate in Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design. She has always loved photography, education, and photo books, and wanted to make them accessible to everyone.

In 2025 Lily took on the initiative to start her own publishing non-profit, FRAME/SEQUENCE, through fiscal sponsorship with CultureWorks of Philadelphia. FRAME/SEQUENCE is a quarterly print periodical spotlighting underrepresented and emerging photographers, writers, artists, and communities across Philadelphia and Greater Pennsylvania — connecting art, story, and place in a uniquely intimate and enduring form.

Lily also currently works as an adjunct photography professor at Mercer County Community College, Rowan University, and Rowan College at Burlington County. She has also taught at The College of New Jersey, and Union County Community College, all located in New Jersey.

Lily Colman speaks about her show, She, Archivist, at the JKC Gallery and her new periodical, Frame/Sequence.

She, Archivist is a project about womanhood, inheritance, and specifically how certain items and feelings are passed down between generations of women. The focus is on matrilineal inheritance through perceived rituals in Judaism, and the questioning of certain beliefs passed down.

Using traditional film-based and alternative photographic processes and utilizing collage with domestic materials, Colman attempts to reconstruct her identity through her family’s matrimonial history as well as her own experience with an abusive marriage and subsequent divorce.

https://www.lilycolman.com

https://www.frame-sequence.com

Lily was featured in the 2021 International Juried Exhibition at The Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, NJ, where she was awarded First Prize and a Solo Exhibition. Her solo exhibition, The Knots on the Underside of the Carpet, ran from April 22 – June 4, 2022, at the CCA.

Lily graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with her MFA in 2020, as well as a Certificate in Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design. She has always loved photography, education, and photo books, and wanted to make them accessible to everyone.

Frame/Sequence is a photobook periodical that blends personal storytelling with fine art photography. We currently publish bi-anually with the aim of becoming quarterly. We invite writers and photo-based artists—especially from Philadelphia and the surrounding region—to share authentic, lived experiences. Each edition, based around a theme, curates these narratives and striking visual work.

This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club

Begin Building your dream photobook library today at

https://charcoalbookclub.com