Ian North: art/work/words traces the career of New Zealand-born, Adelaide-based artist, curator and writer, Ian North. Edited by Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Art Gallery of South, the book features essays by ten leading academics, curators and writers - Pedro de Almeida, Peter Beilharz, Helen Ennis, Lloyd Jones, Tracey Lock, Joanna Mendelssohn, Daniel Palmer, Leigh Robb, Cathy Speck and Daniel Thomas.

The book offers an overview and assessment of Ian North's wide-ranging career, highlighting his significant work in photography from the 1970s to the present day, and his contribution to Australian museum practice as a curator at the Art Gallery of South Australia (1971-80) and the National Gallery of Australia (1980-84). The book reprints four key essays by North including Expanse: Aboriginalities, spatialities and the politics of ecstasy (1998).