Structure and Sequence
Instructors: Cristian Ordóñez and Kate Schneider
CONTACT Photobook Lab, 80 Spadina Ave, Suite 205, Toronto
Applications for this workshop open in fall 2025.
Created to help emerging and mid-career photographers realize their book projects, this multi-day workshop led by artists Cristian Ordóñez and Kate Schneider will guide participants in the clear direction of a photobook that they can propose for grants and publishers.
The workshop includes sequencing and layout activities, peer-led critiques, and conversations with guest photographers, editors, and designers of recognized experience.
Held at the CONTACT Photobook Lab in downtown Toronto, the workshop is subject to an application process. It is free to apply; successful participants will be notified and invoiced for the workshop fee.
Instructor Bios:
Cristian Ordóñez (b. 1976, Santiago de Chile) has been based in Toronto since 2008. He is an independent graphic designer, photographer and publisher. These three practices constantly merge within his process. With his photographic work he has won the Urbanautica Institute Award (Italy), the Burtynsky Grant, the OMNE – Osservatorio Mobile Nord Est Land residency program prize 2023-2025 (Italy); has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Art Council; shortlisted by Getxophoto (Spain) and nominated for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (Germany). Ordóñez has taught workshops in collaboration with VU Photo (Québec), OCAD University, Gallery 44 and Toronto Metropolitan University. His publications are collected at libraries including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, San Telmo Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Library of Australia, among others. He divides his time working with photography and graphic design, and as a photo editor and design director for the Vermont and Toronto-based publisher of artists books and ephemera Another Earth, which he has been a part of since 2020
Kate Schneider (b. 1980, Cleveland, Ohio) is an artist of settler ancestry living in Tkaronto (Toronto). As a life-long resident of the Great Lakes region, her artistic practice considers her personal and ethical relationship to her home and environment during a time of climate crisis. She has received funding from the MacLaren Art Centre’s John Hartman Award (2020) and the Ontario Arts Council. Kate’s works have been shown extensively throughout North America in such galleries as the Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art (Toronto), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), Spellerberg Projects (Texas), and the Great Plains Art Museum (Nebraska), and published in numerous books and publications, such as PDN’s Photo Annual, Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA), and What Makes a Lake by Another Earth Press. Kate’s first book, How to Understand a Rock, was produced through the Penumbra Foundation’s Risograph Publication Residency (2023).