Perimeter Editions x Patrick Pound | Naarm / Melbourne Book Launch
Perimeter Editions is thrilled to launch our second publication with the New Zealand-born, Australian-based artist Patrick Pound, L is for lonely (Perimeter Editions 135). Taking place in store at Perimeter Books (734 High St, Thornbury) on Saturday August 8, 3pm–5pm, the launch will feature a conversation between Patrick Pound and Daniel Palmer, followed by a signing by the artist and a casual celebration.
A special edition of 25 copies (with a unique, hand-painted photo collage by the artist) is now available for pre-order here. The regular edition of L is for lonely will be available to purchase at and after the launch.
Hope to see you there!
EVENT DETAILS
Perimeter Books
734 High St, Thornbury VIC
Saturday August 8, 2026
3pm–5pm
This is a free event, with no reservations required.
Please note that while children are welcome in the space, we are unfortunately unable to offer a 'kid-friendly' zone where kids can entertain themselves, and we require close supervision by parents or guardians while in the store.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Patrick Pound skirts the line between artist and pictorial treasure hunter. Digging through online marketplaces, estate sales, and flea markets, the New Zealand-born, Australian-based artist has amassed more than 80,000 photographs in his multi-decade career, organising his collection into 130 categories. L is for lonely – which follows Windows, his 2024 book for Perimeter Editions – once made for a compelling drawer of prints in his studio. It now makes for an even more compelling book.
L is for lonely comprises photographs from defunct and dispersed cinema and newspaper archives. Each of the photographs contains the word ‘lonely’ or ‘loneliness’. The word might appear in a film title on the front of a picture, or in the original associated press article attached to the back of a newspaper photograph. Every photograph is depicted from both sides.
The full gamut of the idea of loneliness marinates in these photographs and their material forms. From a picture of a lonely lane where a kidnapping took place, to a promotional still from The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, or a newspaper image of a drone over a lonely desert, this singular tragicomic collection constraint quietly absorbs the entire human condition. The photographs range in subject matter from ‘a lonely photographer kidnapped by a fugitive FBI agent’ to a missing person ‘partially buried behind a chicken coop near Lake Lonely’.
Here, loneliness is found in animal and human form, in all kinds of people and places, and in states of feeling. Strangely, there is comfort and life to be found in the saturation of these stories, and the melancholy beauty of these remnant lyrical documents. While the material culture on display is beautiful and rich – in all its manky newspaper reportage and cinematic splendour – it is also somehow prescient. In these photographs, the present is reflected right back at us. For Pound is not simply interested in these documents for nostalgic returns. Rather, he redeploys them to re-read the past and to rethink the present, with the future front of mind.
As the artist puts it: ‘When you collect under a single collection constraint, the rest of the world always sneaks in.’ Race, class, sex, gender, crime, politics, and some fun, find their way into the scheme of things. There are laughs and there are moments that might just pull you up. Like a lonely hearts club, this book is full of all kinds of loneliness.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
PATRICK POUND is an artist based in Merri-bek, Melbourne. In 2017, the survey exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition was staged at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, curated by Maggie Finch. Recent exhibitions include: Are you lonely tonight? I’m so Lonesome I could cry, curated by Sophie Prince and Myles Russell-Cook, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, ACCA, 2026; “Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here?”: Photography and Touch, curated by Susan Bright and Susannah Baker-Smith, Princeton University Art Museum, 2024; A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload, curated by David Campany, ICP, New York, 2022; The Lives & Loves of Images, curated by David Campany, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, 2020; ¿Déjà vu?, curated by Susan Bright, Museo Lazaro Galdiano, Madrid, Photo Espana, 2019. He has held over fifty solo exhibitions, and his work is held in public galleries in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand.
DANIEL PALMER is a Professor in the School of Art at RMIT University and currently leads Art History and Theory. Palmer's research and professional practice focuses on contemporary art and cultural theory, with a particular emphasis on photography and digital media. Between 2018 and 2023 he was Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the School of Art at RMIT. Prior to joining RMIT in 2018, Palmer was Associate Dean of Graduate Research and Associate Professor in the Art History & Theory Program at Monash Art, Design & Architecture. He also has a long association with the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne, first as a curator and later on the board of management. Palmer has produced a number of publications, including the major photographic history book, Installation View: Photography Exhibitions in Australia (1848–2020), co-written by Martyn Jolly and published by Perimeter Editions in 2021.