Pause

‘Pause’ is the first self-published book curated and designed by Adam Winder, consisting of a collection of stills taken from screen, featuring an original essay by author William J. Simmons.

‘Pause’ explores how masculinity is portrayed visually in film, highlighting the often-overlooked tenderness of men whilst exposing moments where men could be seen as the object. These frames were often originally concealed beneath alternative context and given a motivation to render this gaze more palatable to a traditional audience. The conscious view that the male body can be seen as an erotic object has been avoided.

It aims to question the feminisation of men, the applying of well-established constructs of the gaze placed on women and the use of a woman’s POV to validate the looking of men by men. Dissecting numerous layers of the gaze, through character by way of director and eventually the viewer.

Individual predisposition regardless of its original intention plays a large role in how it is perceived. These images are solely interpreted by the viewer's own inclination, which becomes more exposing than any flesh bared on screen.

This collection acts as an insight into desire, the complexity of repressed longing and the identification that cinema allows with the safety of an unreturned voyeuristic gaze.

‘Pause’ addresses the queering of the gaze, to decentre the binary notions of storytelling and to challenge how we recognise intimacy and attraction that the male gaze has defined.

Stockists include:
Antenne Books (UK), Arcana: Books On the Arts (USA), des pair books (USA), Good Press (UK), ICA London (UK), Librairie Sans Titre (FR), Librairie Yvon Lambert (FR) Mendo Books (NL), Metropolis Bookshop (AUS), Moom Bookshop (TW), Skylight Books (USA) and Tenderbooks (UK)