Function

Function is Harley Weir's contribution to Baron, a numbered series of hardback books produced by the London art-direction studio of the same name, each handed to a different image-maker with an open brief.

Across 166 pages, Weir builds a visual essay around the body's biological conditions, reproduction, birth, and the nipple's conflicting roles as erogenous zone and feeding organ, treating each as a site where the body's functions collide with how they are policed and consumed. The book, art-directed by Jamie Andrew Reid, brings together photography with text and contributions from Isabella Burley, Lydia Lunch, Elise Gallant, Jack, and Emma Roach, and was printed in a first edition of 1,000 copies.

Weir, a British photographer known for blurring documentary and fashion image-making, has published a run of similarly self-directed photobooks including Homes and Paintings with Loose Joints; Function sits alongside those as one of the more overtly political entries in her bibliography.