“Our setting is Portland, Oregon. The photographer is a 43-year-old, divorced American dad. His family and city are splintering, but any feelings of regret are curbed by the thrum of money and capital moving the wheels underneath. We are scattered between points of departure and arrival. All that’s left are pictures to hold the balance.”—Rian Dundon, Passenger foreword

Passenger consists of a succession of immersive full-bleed images by Rian Dundon that were shot with the same point-and-shoot camera he used to capture civil unrest in Portland in 2020, many of which he featured in his acclaimed 2023 book Protest City. This 96-page volume juxtaposes Rian’s forensic depictions of scenes from a battered city with intimate—and at times, heartbreaking—photographs of friends and family. “Passenger is a departure for me—the pictures are more personal, more direct, and more vulnerable than those in my previous books,” he has noted. 

Not only is Rian a brilliant photographer, he is also a groundbreaking designer and publisher. His Out Here and Protest City series of staple-bound 8.5-by-5.5-inch chapbooks, produced quickly and inexpensively, are among my favorite artists’ books of all time. My goal with Passenger—the first major release from my newly launched imprint, Mirrorical, was not only to bring Rian’s stunning new photographs into the world, but also to give him the opportunity to apply the unique vision with which he created these earlier books to a different, and significantly larger, format.