Strata Editions is an experimental photography project and store presenting collections of photobooks, photographic prints, and furniture designed in-house. By focusing on visual and material work through a thematic lens, we offer a space to consider the relationships between photography, self, environment, and production. The works we share tell us stories about ourselves, and about how we tell stories.
Strata serves as a reading room for anyone who passes through its physical and online doors. Some of the works we offer are not readily available for purchase elsewhere; they are either sold out, out of print, or imported. The titles in our collections have been made available by the publishers or the artists themselves, and our hope is that you’ll want to add these books to your own library, to share with friends and family.
Strata Editions resides at the edge of the Middle Rockies and the Northwestern Great Plains, the ancestral home of the Apsáalooke (Crow), the Cayuse Umatilla and Walla Walla, the Hidatsa Minnetaree, the Cheyenne, the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, the Salish, and the Tukudyka’a people.
Nearby, the Yellowstone River flows Northeast from the Rockies, close to the head of the Missouri River Basin. It has seen major flooding events and, as recently as 2015, spills by the oil industry’s Bridger, Exxon Mobil, and Tad True corporations. The Yellowstone’s name originated as Yellow Rock River: Minnetaree call it Mi tse a-da-zi, Cheyenne call it Mo’éheo’hé’e. Local people of the Crow named the river after the Elk: E-chee-dik-karsh-ah-shay.
The cropped map you see here layers features of the area’s geological formations, Indigenous territories, rivers, and state political boundaries sourced from Backcountry Chronicles, the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Montana Tech of the University of Montana, Native Land Digital, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Our first collection, Western Contemporary, is online and was hosted at Placed gallery in Livingston, Montana. In the next year, we plan to find our own home nearby while continuing access to our work through our website and social media.
Strata Editions is owned and operated by Will Warasila, an American photographer focused on long-term documentary projects concerning the environment—particularly the slow violence wrought by corporate and political structures. Gnomic Book published his first monograph, Quicker than Coal Ash, in late 2022. Before moving to Montana, Warasila lived in his home state of North Carolina, where he earned an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University; before that, he lived and worked in New York City for several years.
Our collaborators include:
Alexa Dilworth, Editor
Coryander Friend, Gallery Advisor
DTank+, Furniture Design Technicians
Gavin Lommatsch and J Skoglund, Furniture Fabricators
Giguel Maybach and Jeemin Shim, Graphic Designers
John Warasila, Furniture Co-Designer
CONTACT
Email
will@strata-editions.com
Instagram
@strata.editions
