It was almost exactly one year ago that husband and wife Sofia Krysiak and Jack Latham found out they were moving to Nashville. That’s when Latham officially took the job as associate professor of photography at Belmont University. But even though the international couple — Krysiak is originally from Buenos Aires and Latham is Welsh — had long been living in London, they’d been considering a relocation to Tennessee for years.
“London is massive, it’s hectic, and it kind of grinds you down after a while,” Krysiak says. “Here you can be more spontaneous, and you can make plans without having to plan two months ahead.”
“Tennessee as a state has always been in my mind — partly because I’m named after the whiskey,” says Latham, whose middle name is Daniel. When he accepted the position at Belmont, they both felt like it was a long time coming — and they didn’t just come for the booze.
“I’ve always been aware of the photographic scene [in Middle Tennessee],” he says. “Tennessee seems to export more photographers that happen to be women than any other place internationally. So it seems to be a really incredible place — not just for photography, but specifically female artists.
“In fact, my first ever solo show was at an art festival where Stacy [Kranitz] had her first international exhibition,” Latham continues. “And so I’ve known her for pretty much my entire career, and I’ve exhibited with Kristine Potter, and I’ve been aware of Tamara [Reynolds]’ work for a very long time.”
As for why so many great photographers seem drawn to Nashville, Latham is unsure — but he has theories.
In late April, a group of women gathered around a fire in an East Nashville backyard. They passed around chocolate cupcakes, wine and Topo Chi…
“Photographers are desperate to be musicians in a strange way,” he says with plenty of European cheekiness. “Like, they go away, they make a project, then they make a book, they have an exhibition that tours, and it all tackles a certain theme. There is this kind of cyclical nature of making work and releasing work that reminds me a lot of the music scene.”
Latham’s photography career has tackled a multitude of topics, all conceptually complex and well considered. His most recent project is 2023’s Beggar’s Honey, which grapples with the clandestine underbelly of internet click farms and includes images gleaned from TikTok and photographs of actual click farms in Vietnam and Hong Kong.
Krysiak is an independent curator and photo researcher, and her most recent work has been laser-focused on photobooks. Each of the books she edits feels precious and painstakingly curated. A recent project is Aseptic Field by Lean Lui, a handmade cobalt-blue box with a debossed title and two compartments that contain limited-edition prints and posters of photographs that delve into ideas of seduction, intimacy and lust.
This is highly ambitious and interesting stuff that requires incredible amounts of preparation, tenacity and, in their words, insolence. It’s part of what’s so exciting about the book-publishing platform the duo is launching later this spring.
“Sofia’s worked in publishing for so many years,” Latham says, “and I’ve had to deal with the publishing world as a photographer for so many years, and so I think after a while of realizing how exploitative and not artists-first that environment can be, we thought we would kind of put our heads together and create something to try to do things in a different way.”
Krysiak and Latham did not choose the name of their publishing platform without consideration.
“It’s called Terrible Baby,” Krysiak says. “It’s basically a crass translation of the French expression l’enfant terrible — which is usually used for men, by the way. It’s a description of somebody who does something really well, but at the same time, they are so insolent.”
“Like a black sheep,” Latham offers.
“There’s this insolent/excellent quality of what we want to do,” Krysiak says. “We want to start uncomfortable conversations.”
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