Join us at ICP for a conversation between artists Jeff Mermelstein and Farah Al Qasimi on the occasion of our latest exhibition, Photobooks USA: 2000-25, discussing their respective photobooks, Hello Future and #nyc. Mermelstein and Al Qasimi will delve into the processes of translating their work to book form and what keeps them inspired, followed by a Q&A. About the BooksImage: Farah Al Qasimi, Lunch, 2018, from Hello Future Hello Future Shortlisted for the Aperture-Paris Photo Photobook of the Year 2021, Hello Future is a culmination of Farah Al Qasimi’s (born 1991) photographic, performance and film practice, unified within her keen focus on surface and texture, and the revealing visual influences of the splashy and florid. Al Qasimi examines postcolonial structures of power, gender and aesthetics in the Persian Gulf states and global cultural confluence and migration at large. #nyc#nyc is Jeff Mermelstein's multifarious, comic and heartbreaking survey of contemporary life as learned through overseen text messages. Written in the new language of acronym and initialism, truncation and cipher wordplay, interrupted by the occasional longueur, people appear to have few inhibitions when faced only with their own reflection in a phone screen, such that they pour their heart-felt desire and lust and hate and vitriol in unfettered streams of text consciousness. Chaucerian in its breadth and humor, this project reveals the complex inner lives of the city’s residents, and the intriguing richness of emotion that exists within the most innocuous moments of everyday life: on the train, a park bench, or in the street. Here, a short history of New York unfolds, as told directly by one resident to another. About the SpeakersFarah Al Qasimi makes photographs, films and music. Often working with large-scale vinyl imagery and a multiplicity of photographic prints and screens, she is interested in the internet and its hierarchies of information and emotion. Al Qasimi loves the complexity of storytelling and value-building in children's cartoons, and many of her video works include primary narrators who are anthropomorphized. Through a highly collaborative practice, she has worked with hand-sewn puppets, falcons, African Land Snails, exorcists, and most recently, a Jack Sparrow impersonator. Her work is in the collections of MoMA New York, Tate Modern, Guggenheim New York and Abu Dhabi, and she has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, Delfina Foundation in London, and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa. Jeff Mermelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, was born in 1957 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1978 with a B.A. in Biology and moved to New York City the same year for a one-year internship at the International Center of Photography, where he has been on the teaching faculty since 1987. Mermelstein was awarded an Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant (1991) and the European Publishers Award for Photography (1999). His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Art Institute of Chicago; and the International Center of Photography, New York. His editorial work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Life, The New Yorker, New York, Esquire, GQ, Newsweek, Time, Vanity Fair, and many others.Mermelstein's monographs include 'Sidewalk' (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1999), 'No Title Here' (powerHouse Books, 2003), 'Twirl / Run' (powerHouse Books, 2009), 'Arena' (TBW Books, 2019), 'Hardened' (Mörel Books, 2019), and '#nyc' (MACK, 2020).

Join us online to learn more about ICP’s One-Year Certificate Program in Documentary Practice: Visual Storytelling Online, led by a 2025 alum and our admissions Team.The alum will share their personal experiences in the overview of the curriculum, structure, admissions process, and application steps. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions directly to the alum and the Admissions Team.For the online One-Year Certificate program, the application for the program and Scholarships is currently open for the 2027 academic year. The priority deadline for the admission and merit-based scholarship consideration is October 18, 2026. ICP’s Online One-Year Certificate Programs begin in mid-January 2027.About the Event Format This is an online event held via Zoom. Please register in advance for this free event. ZOOM LINK HereIf you have questions about the event, please contact [email protected]. Image © Kristina Cordon (DOC Online '25)

Make art inspired by photographic techniques during ICP’s monthly Family Art Hour. Each session features a hand-on activity inspired by ICP's exhibitions or collection. This session of Family Art Hour is hosted by educator and artist Cassandra Mayela Allen. Inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Photography exhibition, bring discarded fabric or used clothes that you want to repurpose for a communal braiding workshop held in ICP's gallery.Tickets for this program are included with Museum admission (free for kids ages 14 and under) and materials are provided. Come early or stay after to explore our current exhibition, Yves Saint Laurent and Photography and Photobooks USA 2000–25, with complimentary Yves Saint Laurent and Photography Kids’ Guide available at the admission desk.Families with children ages 4 and up of all abilities are welcome. Parents and guardians must remain with their children during the activity. About the ArtistCassandra Mayela Allen is a Venezuelan artist based in New York City whose multidisciplinary practice—encompassing mixed media, textiles, installation, and socially engaged projects— examines memory, belonging, active meditation, and labor as tools for self-healing. Rooted in the migrating body and the objects it carries, her work treats personal belongings as living archives: woven, stitched, and suspended, they become material records inseparable from the communal practices that generate them. Allen foregrounds collaboration and encounter, inviting alternative social networks to participate in the making and meaning of each piece. Her work activates art as a relational process rather than a fixed object, centering acts of making as a means of reaching a state of “flow”, reflection, and connection.Mayela Allen is an alumna of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2025) and has participated in residencies including Bolster Arts (2025), Modern Ancient Brown (2024), Pocoapoco (2024), and Campo Garzón (2024). In 2023, she received an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She has presented solo exhibitions at Instituto Cervantes, LES Girls Club, Olympia, and JO-HS Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at MOCAD, UNAM, EFA Project Space, Eric Firestone Gallery, V1 Gallery, NADA Miami, and Mama Projects, among others. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, BOMB Magazine, Elephant, American Craft Council, and Vogue México. Image credit: Aquel Amplex, Found fabrics and garments, braided collectively, 2024-2026

Join ICP on the 100-year anniversary of the opening of the first photobooth studio for a special New York showing of Spirit of the Photobooth, a new documentary that explores the history of the photobooth and the resurgence of classic booths all around the world. After the screening, director Sam Anthony, Sharon Josepho, executive producer and granddaughter of the Photobooth inventor, Anatol Josepho, Bre Conley Saxon, founder of Auto Photo, and Danielle Krasniqi, a photobooth operator and owner, will be joined for a Q&A led by by ICP Creative Director, David Campany. Image: Movie still from Spirit of the Photobooth, written and direct by Sam Anthony About the Film"2026 is the hundredth birthday of the photobooth. A fixture on Main Street, in malls, in the back of bars and in railway stations for decades, this overlooked and unsung part of photographic history looked set to be erased by the advent of the smartphone and The Selfie. But, that’s not the whole story.After all, who would pay and wait four minutes for self-portraits, when they could have as many as they like for free on their phone? For a while it didn’t look good for photobooths. The traditional analog booths, with their distinctive ‘real’ photographs were replaced by digital versions.Thousands of the old analog booths were destroyed or stuck in barns and warehouses.But 100 years after their invention, the ones that survived are now highly prized collectors items, using technology that has hardly changed and which still retains its old magic.Long lines of Gen Z users snake around the block in the world’s hippest cities to use them. And ironically, it’s digital technology and social media—on the face of it the booth’s greatest challenges—that have helped save them. Influencers have supercharged the vintage appeal of photobooths, and digital natives desperate for experiential “realness” have rediscovered the charms of holding four black and white shots in their hand after squeezing into the booth, drawing the curtain, and giving their best self to the camera. And most of them heard about it from some of the world’s biggest online celebrities.So now a new breed of ingenious photographic entrepreneurs have sprung up to service an insatiable demand. They scour the globe for old booths, restoring them to their former glory and spreading the word on Instagram and TikTok, because there’s money to be made: Big money.Truth is, there always was. When immigrant and inventor Anatol Josepho first launched the booth on Broadway in New York City on September 21, 1926, huge crowds gathered immediately, and he sold the patent six months later for an offer he couldn’t refuse.One hundred years later and the long lines have formed again, and the analog photobooth has never been hotter.So this is a film about how and why that happened. The story of the singular man who changed the way we take portraits, and the photobooth’s unique role in everything from the art of 1920s surrealists and Andy Warhol decades later, to the democratization of portraiture which gave the marginalized and overlooked a platform for photography on their own terms.Filmed all over the world, Spirit of the Photobooth is a social and cultural history as seen through the lens of the photobooth itself, and an account of photographic obsession that takes us to meet devotees in Australia, Europe, South Korea, and of course the United States.And it all starts with Anatol Josepho and his invention. A classic and extraordinary rags-to-riches origin story." —Sam Anthony, Writer and Director of Spirit of the Photobooth Image: Movie still from Spirit of the Photobooth, written and direct by Sam Anthony

See and be seen this summer on the Lower East Side during ICP’s Late Nights offering extended hours, reduced admission to visit Yves Saint Laurent and Photography and Photobooks USA 2000-25, drink specials at ICP and in the neighborhood, and plenty of photo inspiration to strike a pose in our new Analog Photobooth or at our outdoor Fujifilm instax Portrait studio pop-ups! Learn more about spending your Thursday night at ICP below.No RSVP required for ICP members. Late Nights at ICPOpen till 8 PM with $5 admission to visit Yves Saint Laurent and Photography and Photobooks USA 2000-25.Enjoy a refreshing iced pomegranate Moroccan mint green tea or a cold beer from Brooklyn based brewery, Talea from ICP’s Cafe and explore the latest ICP Incubator Project, Andrea Hernández Briceño: Fire Becomes Spirit, and our new Model 11 Analog Photobooth.Fujifilm instax Street Portrait Pop-upLudlow and Broome Street on select Thursdays:July 16 - Patience OjionukaAugust 13 – Abigail MontesAugust 27 - PoupaySeptember 10 – Justin J WeeSeptember 24 – Landon Nordeman Landon Nordeman is a photographer based in New York City. Over the past two decades, Nordeman has shot personal projects and assignments for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Vogue, and The New York Times, among others. His work—covering everything from fashion week to political conventions—has taken him around the world and earned recognition from Communication Arts, American Photography, Pictures of the Year International, and the James Beard Foundation. His first monograph, Out of Fashion (Damiani, 2016), was named a photobook of the year by TIME. His series, “Last Night,” will be exhibited at The Museum of The City of New York in November 2026. He teaches at the International Center of Photography, and is currently an Artist in Residence at Silver Art in NYC. Portrait by Ben Fraternale Lower East Side Neighborhood SpotsAfter your visit to ICP, stick around the neighborhood for the best in arts and culture! Enjoy a discounted glass of wine when showing your same-day ICP admission ticket at local wine bar, Somm Time (254 Broome Street). Offer available on Thursdays only through September 24. Image Asher Selle

Join us online to learn more about ICP’s online One-Year Certificate Programs in Writing and the Photographic Image and Curatorial Practices in Photography led by led by ICP’s Creative Director, David Campany and Program Leads Alan Huck and Daria Tuminas. In this session, you will receive an overview of the program’s curriculum, structure, admissions process, and how to apply. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from both Program Leads.For the online One-Year Certificate program, the application for the program and Scholarships is currently open for the 2027 academic year. The priority deadline for the admission and merit-based scholarship consideration is October 18, 2026. ICP’s Online One-Year Certificate Programs begin in mid-January 2027.About the Event Format This is an online event held via Zoom. Please register in advance for this free event. ZOOM LINK HereIf you have questions about the event, please contact [email protected] by Jeenah Moon

Explore photobooks from the ICP Library and connect with fellow photobook enthusiasts at ICP's Photobook Club. Each month, browse hand-picked selections from special guests and ICP community members.This session of Photobook Club is hosted by Re'al Christian, writer, editor, art historian, and the Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School.The Photobook Club takes place in the ICP library on the last Saturday of each month. This event is free to attend with RSVP.About the ArtistRe'al Christian is a writer, editor, and art historian based in Queens, NY. Her work examines material histories of diaspora, movement, media, and ecology. Her writing has appeared in publications including BOMB, Art in America, Brooklyn Rail, and ART PAPERS, where she is a Contributing Editor. She is the Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, where she is the founding editor of the digital publishing series Post/doc (2022–) and An Incomplete* Listing of NYC Libraries, Reading Rooms, and Archives (2023–), as well as the co-editor of As for Protocols (2025) and Maria Hupfield’s Breaking Protocol (2023). She also co-edited Acts of Art in Greenwich Village (Hunter College Art Galleries/Hirmer, 2025), ART PAPERS Fall 2025: Horror After Horror, and 50 YEARS of ART PAPERS (2026). Her curatorial projects include Repetition means a/void, Parent Company (2023) and The earth leaked red ochre, Miriam Gallery (2022). Christian holds an MA in Art History from Hunter College and a BS from New York University, where she double majored in Art History and Media, Culture, and Communication.About ICP Library ICP’s reading library contains over 20,000 books and periodicals. The reading room is currently open to the public during ICP’s monthly Photobook Club, to researchers by appointment, and to members during Library Member Hours.Learn more about ICP’s Library here. Image by Pasinee Pramunwong