Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self

Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self is a collection of essays, interviews and reflections on how photography and video shape identity and blur the line between public and private selves.

Aperture published it in June 2018 as a 240-page paperback with 100 images. The writing treats making and sharing images as part of online behavior and social codes. It also follows artists who resist the narrow pictures of race, gender, sexuality and autonomy in mainstream popular culture. The book grew out of the exhibition and program of the same name at the International Center of Photography in New York.

Charlotte Cotton was the first curator in residence at ICP, in 2015–16, and opened the museum's new home on the Bowery with that exhibition and program. She has also held curatorial posts at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Photographers' Gallery in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Katonah Museum of Art and Metabolic Studio. She wrote Photography Is Magic (Aperture, 2015) and The Photograph as Contemporary Art, and cofounded Words Without Pictures and Eitherand.org.