International Summer School of Photography 2019

Description

Making photographs has always been a collaborative act. A myriad of creative decisions, social interactions, divisions of labour, and many other forms of contribution are usually buried in service to the photographer’s ‘unique vision’. But what takes place when these processes of collaboration, co-production or social encounter are positioned as an integral part of the work presented to an audience? When the ‘subjects’ are recast as ‘participants’ taking part in a socially-engaged, community, collaborative, or participatory photography practice?

(Un)Making Images Together was designed by Anthony Luvera and facilitated by Luvera with Vincen Beeckman. This workshop brought together a community of practitioners invested in photography and collaboration. Together they explored some of the practical, theoretical, methodological, and ethical issues that can arise when working in this way. The workshop was an invitation to experiment with ways of engaging individuals, groups of people, and communities, as active participants in the process of creating work about their lives, experiences, and points of view about the world around them. At the heart of this workshop was a focus on the dynamic between the photographer and subject. To view this relationship as a scale of interaction marked by degrees of collaboration, ranging from fleeting and short-term interactions, sustained strategies of facilitation, co-production and pedagogy, through to longer-term relationships and collective action. Who stands to benefit from collaboration? Who determines the parameters of an invitation to participate? Whose needs, intentions or ambitions can be fulfilled, and to what ends?

Participants were invited to develop relationships with and then create work in collaboration with the local community of Zaļenieki. Luvera and Beeckman enabled workshop participants to engage with themes of authorship, agency, consent, and representation through their collaborative practice to expand understanding of the implications of photography and collaboration, and to experiment with new ways of working.

Period	12 Jul 2019 → 20 Jul 2019
Event type	Other
Conference number	13
Location	Jelgava, LatviaShow on map