It was a photo book editing workshop in Hyderabad which she attended in February that sparked Kaamna Patel’s interest in the concept of handcrafted, small-edition books where visuals are key. In the months that followed, the Mumbai-based visual artist put her learning to use through an interesting exercise she took up.

“For four months, I went through six newspapers every day to collate images that appear [in articles and advertisements] to comment on a number of topics,” says Patel about her project, which started as an Instagram series and evolved into a series of photo books titled In the News. The first volume of the series, Alpha Males and Women Power, which itself is a newspaper headline, was released last Saturday. It makes use of print media images to comment on prevalent patriarchies and pre-determined gender roles. The book is bound in a Japanese four-hole binding style, stitched by Patel, and has been published under her publishing platform JOJO, which will be dedicated to photo books.