In her 2024 photobook *Outside the Binary*, Linda Bournane Engelberth gathers portraits of individuals who identify beyond the gender binary. Some subjects describe themselves as having both male and female identities, or something in between; others use terms such as genderfluid, for a gender that shifts over time, or agender, for a life not defined by gender at all. The people portrayed come from different parts of the world, yet the book finds common ground in their experiences. Across seventy-four color images, Engelberth works within a portrait tradition with attention to people whose identities are not adequately described by two fixed categories.
The book’s apparatus is unusually substantial for a photobook. A preface by Coyote Millar opens the volume, and afterword essays by Oyeronke Oyewumi, B. A. Odongo, and Dr. Tominga O’Donnell extend the conversation. Engelberth edited and designed the book with Gösta Flemming; Maria Morris handled English copy editing, and Johan Lindberg contributed final art. The publisher is Journal, and the first edition is a hardcover with an open spine, 160 pages, in English. The combination of portraits and several essays offers readers both individual encounters and a broader discussion of gender. The open spine is a specific construction choice, not an indication that the book is unfinished.
Engelberth, born in 1977, is a Norwegian-Algerian visual artist whose practice spans photography, installation, and film. She has exhibited at institutions including Die Haus der Photographie/Deichtorhallen in Hamburg and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, and she is a contributing photographer for VII Photo. Her work centers on personal narratives within socio-political frameworks and gender discourses, and this portrait project develops that sustained interest in the relationship between individual experience and social categories.
The book was shortlisted for the 2025 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Award, and a Swedish library review called it a beautiful art book that raises important questions about identity and rights. For collectors, its interest lies not in claims of scarcity but in the coherence of its project: a sustained portrait series, an editorial collaboration that joins images with several distinct textual perspectives, and a physical edition that lets these elements be considered together.
