Masters & workshops 2015
Storytelling: Truth, Fiction, and Collage
By Jim Goldberg
This workshop will incorporate elements of photography, text, drawing, and possibly audio/visual, with the goal being that each student will create a narrative story about something they experience or observe during their time in the workshop. All participants will seek out a person or place within the local community to help them tell this story; this might be something as abstract as a local legend or as specific as interviewing and photographing a person in the community.
We will discuss what happens when photography is interwoven with text and mixed media and how the blending of such elements has different consequences than working in the strictly photographic. Students are encouraged to look both outward and inward for their inspiration. The emphasis will be on each student creating and telling a good story. We will discuss things such as: How can experimentation be utilized? How does one approach their subject? How can we use history, oral tradition, or personal mythology in a way to tell a story that is authentic while still being artful? Participants are expected to enter the workshop with an inquisitive mind and collaborative spirit. We may also overlap with Alessandra Sanguinetti’s portrait workshop to discuss works-in-progress.
Prior requirements/preparations:
This is a workshop for students who are interested in connecting more deeply to their own practice while experimenting in new ways. Participants are encouraged to have done some basic research on Latvian history, society, landscape, and culture. This will be a very hands-on workshop, with a focus on making, so bring any materials you may be interested in incorporating into your work.
Jim Goldberg is a Professor of Art at the California College of Arts and Crafts and a member of Magnum Photos. He has been exhibiting for over 30 years and his innovative use of image and text make him a landmark photographer of our times.
He began to explore experimental storytelling and the potentials of combining image and text with Rich and Poor (1977-85), where he juxtaposed the residents of welfare hotel rooms with the upper class to investigate the American myths about class, power, and happiness. In Raised by Wolves (1985-95), he worked closely with runaway teenagers in San Francisco and Los Angeles to create work that combined photographs, text, home movies, snapshots, drawings, diary entries, and found objects. In 2011, we was awarded Henri Cartier-Bresson Award and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for his project Open See (2003-2011) focusing on migration, refugees and human trafficking in Europe. His most recent work is creating an eclectic portrait of a post-industrial American city; the forthcoming book Candy (2015) deals with his earliest work and his coming of age as a photographer. Goldberg’s work is included in numerous private and public collections including New York MOMA, San Francisco MOMA, Whitney, Getty, Corcoran, MFA Boston, Hallmark Collection, Library of Congress, MFA Houston, National Museum of American Art, and others. He lives and works in San Francisco.
The Narrative Portrait
By Alessandra Sanguinetti
When making a portrait, we have a rare opportunity to unabashedly gaze into someone else’s world – be it a loved one or a stranger – at times anonymously, at other times with the complicity of the portrayed. This workshop will explore portraiture in its many forms, with an emphasis on the use of portraiture within a narrative. The participants will be expected to engage with a subject in ways that challenge their comfort levels and boundaries, with a sense of play and a willingness to experiment.
The first day of the workshop will consist of group portfolio reviews an overview of historical and contemporary portraiture. We will then discuss selection of a subject for the week; participants can select their own or have one assigned based on a theme in which they are interested. Each option offers different opportunities and challenges. The week will consist of shooting, editing, and discussing the work, including talking about approach and technique. There will additionally be collaboration within the class, in which each participant will assist someone else for a day. The workshop may overlap with Jim Goldberg’s class in review of the work-in-progress. By the end of the workshop, each participant will have created a narrative portrait of their subject consisting of a collection of edited and sequenced images, and a notion of the ideal form of presentation for the work.
Prior requirements/preparations:
Participants should bring an edited digital or print portfolio of their work and be prepared to give a 5-minute presentation about themselves. Participants should research the surroundings of Kuldīga prior to arrival, including the history, communities, and social scene. All students need to bring their own equipment including a tripod if they own one.
Alessandra Sanguinetti is a recipient of generous awards and fellowships, such as Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, a Hasselblad Foundation grant, an Arles Discovery Award, and a Robert Gardner Fellowship, and my photographs are included in public and private collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA NY), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and others. Monographs include On the Sixth Day, The Adventures of Guille and Beli and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams, and Sorry, Welcome.
She has photographed for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and New York Magazine and is represented by Yossi Milo Gallery in New York City, Ruth Benzacar Gallery in Buenos Aires and is a member of Magnum Photos.
Human Nature
By Anna Fox, in cooperation with Andrew Bruce
This workshop is about telling tales; using photography to reveal stories about the local environment and community, and perhaps also reveal something about our human nature today.
During the workshop the students will research, explore and consider the relationships between humans and nature in the local area of Kuldīga. They will seek out people who are willing to share their stories about the nature that surrounds them - from simple things such as walking the dog, to hunting or life as a farmer, or perhaps memorable tales about their first contact with nature (big or small) – all of them will have a story to tell either from the past or from the present. The challenge is to collect these stories and then translate them into a visual interpretation, in a way creating modern local myths.
The participants will be discovering new ways of combining photography with other mediums and approaches with the aim of telling stories. At the end of the workshop we will design a book together that includes all the work the participants have made. This will be a book of modern-day myths, an assemblage of folk tales about the essence of human nature in Kuldīga today.
Prior requirements/preparations:
The participants are asked to bring a story about a human nature relationship - ideally this would be a personal story but you can also bring someone else's story if you want. All the equipment necessary for executing work on site, including a computer with postprocessing and ideally Indesign programmes.
Anna Fox (UK) has been working in photography since 1983, she is currently Professor of Photography at The University College for the Creative Arts in Farnham. In 2010 she was shortlisted for the 2010 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize and in 2012 for the Pilar Citoler Prize. Her satirical, often humorous storytelling work has been included in numerous international group shows, including “Warworks” at The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Victoria & Albert Museum, “How We Are: Photographing Britain” at Tate Britain, and the touring exhibition “Documentary Dilemmas and The Observers”. Anna Fox Photographs 1983 – 2007 was published by Photoworks in 2007 and her retrospective exhibition "Cockroach Diary and Other Stories" is currently touring Europe. Her latest books, Resort 1 and Resort 2, reveal the theatrical nature of the contemporary leisure experience in a holiday camp that has become an icon of British holiday culture.
Andrew Bruce (UK) is an artist working primarily with photography. His work deals with the position of animals in relation to culture and to the natural world. Using allegorical strategies to frame his poignant messages, Bruce questions our modern relationship to nature. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, and he lectures extensively on the subject of photography in universities, museums and writes for educational publications. Bruce is a 2013 MA graduate of the Royal College of Art, London.
This is what I saw. Experiencing Landscape.
By Alexander Gronsky
Photography for me is closely related with a struggle to record the personal experience of being within a certain landscape. How do we define a landscape? Is it something we can distance ourselves from? The lens inevitably puts us in the center of everything we see and thus makes observing a landscape a narcissistic act of observing oneself within it. I believe it is only through such act that we can acquire what can be called a "personal view" and therefore a persona.
The workshop will be committed to a broad definition of photography as a lens-based medium. We'll use landscape as a starting point, a theme to be interpreted and expressed by a variety of artistic means. Participants will be encouraged to interpret the subject any way they feel appropriate, and to explain their decisions and articulate their goals in discussion within the group. Though all students will be expected to produce work, there will be no assignments. The decisions on the content and the tools to use will be yours, while I will offer my support at all stages of the process. I see this workshop as a joint effort to reflect on the core motifs of one's photographic practice.
Prior requirements/preparations:
This is a workshop for photographers interested in reflecting on their artistic practice within the broad theme of landscape. Bring all equipment necessary to execute a small project and a portfolio of relevant work.
Alexander Gronsky was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1980 and began working as a press photographer in 1998. He gradually moved from editorial photography to working on personal documentary projects focusing on the contemporary Russian landscape. He has received numerous awards, including the 2013 Prix Levallois-Epson, the 2012 Foam Paul Huf Award, the 2010 Silver Camera Grand Prix, Moscow, the 2009 Aperture Portfolio Prize, and the 2009 Linhof Young Photographer Award. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Bogota, and Levallois, France, as well as numerous group exhibitions. He was a participant in the 2003 World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. Gronsky is based in Riga, Latvia and is represented by INSTITUTE (UK).
Before Photography: A Study of Camera Obscura
By Takashi Homma
The phenomenon of Camera Obscura (or dark chamber), when the outside scenery is reflected in a dark room through a small hole, has been known since long before the invention of photography in 1827. It is considered one of the key inventions that led to the possibility of fixing the image as a photograph.
In modern times, our society seeks to avoid darkness, and we lack the chance to see an image in a dark room by accident. During the workshop, we will experience the phenomenon of camera obscura, and go on to create our own unique pinhole cameras. A photograph that you have created yourself in the darkness is an entirely different experience than an image taken by your digital camera. Going back to the beginnings of thinking about photography and its basic principles will be an opportunity to explore and understand your own creative practice.
Firstly, we will darken an entire room and explore the possibilities of the camera obscura together. Then, each student will make their own pinhole camera/s, by using an empty box or a can. We will also learn how to transform your digital SLR camera into a pinhole with the help of a small hole in the lens cap. Finally, each of the participants will create a series of photographs taken with their self-made or digital pinhole camera. The subjects can be selected to reflect participants’ own interests and practice. There will be daily group gatherings and editing sessions, combined with a review of the work of important authors, including the tutor’s own.
Prior requirements/preparations:
The students should bring their digital SLR camera and, if they like, container/s (such as a box or an empty can) for handmade pinhole camera.
Takashi Homma is a Japanese photographer and artist, born in 1962. Resided in London from 1991-1992. Upon returning to Japan, he worked in many genres, including editorials and advertising, and producing his series “New Waves”, “Suburban Landscapes”, “Sky Shots”, and “Tokyo Children”. In 1999, he received the prestigious 24th Kimura Ihei Memorial Photography Award for his series “Tokyo Suburbia”. In 2008, his book “Takashi Homma: Tokyo” came out, making him the first Japanese author to be published by Aperture. In 2011 – 2012 his work "New Documentary" was exhibited at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery and the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art.
Takashi Homma is an acclaimed teacher of photography in Japan - a guest professor at the graduate school of Tokyo Zokei University, and leading numerous other workshops and classes. He has published two popular books on teaching photography.
A Crash Course in Photobook Making: From editing to design to production
By Alex Bocchetto (Akina Books) and Nico Baumgarten
Every photobook is a self-contained universe with its own set of rules. A series of photographs can be a starting point for the process of creating a book - editing, sequencing, design and choice of materials are all opportunities to add new layers of meaning to a body of work. During the genesis of a photobook, ambiguities and clashes, unexpected juxtapositions and riddles will emerge, revealing the pleasures and pains of visual language. Every single picture will gain a different meaning when placed in a broader perspective of the book as a whole.
The aim of this Crash Course is to build a dummy, covering all the steps of the process through knowledge, creativity and chance. Editing, sequencing, design, binding and printing techniques as well as marketing and funding tips will be disclosed through a hands-on approach and case studies. Techniques of non-linear narrative, visual language and production will be explored as a way to conceive the potential of a photographic project and re-imagine it in a new light.
We believe in the photobook as an object to crease, love and collect – a total that is more than the sum of its parts.
Prior requirements/preparations:
Participants should have a photographic project in an advanced state, which they want to turn into a publication. You will need to bring a pre-selection of pictures (100-150 small prints) from the project to start editing. You will also need a laptop with a layout program, such as Indesign, and the basic skills to use it.
AKINA Books is an independent publishing house of hand-made photobooks, established in 2012 by Alex Bocchetto and Valentina Abenavoli – two Italians based in London but working internationally. Akina is a space to conceive, design, print and bind ideas, working closely with the authors on every aspect of the creative and technical process of bookmaking for every project they take up. Their most notable editions include “Grand Circle Diego” by Cyril Costilhes (2014), “Italia o Italia” by Federico Clavarino (2014), “Teikai” and “Linger” by Daisuke Yokota (2014), “Verbrannte Erde” by Salvatore Santoro (2013) as well as 10 issues of “Eclisse” – a periodical limited–edition handmade series, featuring short stories by emerging photographers.
Nico Baumgarten (DE) is a freelance photographer and bookmaker trying to find a way out of the limitations of the editorial and art market by creating books. He has studied photography at the IDEP in Barcelona and bookbinding at the CFP Bauer in Milan. He has self-published four books, all handmade in limited editions: 'Berlusconians / No Berlusconians' (2011), 'Leer' (2013), "ma almeno ci sei tu amore mio" (2013), “Die wachsamen Augen der Angela M.” (2014) and “How the other half lives” (in process, 2015). Nico has taught photography and bookmaking workshops in Berlin, Riga, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam and Paris.
This workshop led by Vincen Beeckman and Viktorija Eksta is exclusively for teenagers from Pelči and Kuldīga district. The participants will be invited to learn the basics of photography and visual storytelling whilst having a Big Adventure together. A special application procedure will apply.
Šī darbnīca ir rezervēta jauniešiem no Pelčiem un Kuldīgas novada, kas vēlās piedzīvot nebijušu radošo piedzīvojumu, paralēli apgūstot fotogrāfijas un vizuālo stāstu veidošanas pamatus. Dalībnieku vecums: no 15 līdz 21 gadiem.
Darbnīcu vadīs mākslinieki Vincens Bīkmans no Beļģijas un Viktorija Eksta no Latvijas.
12 dalībnieki tiks izvēlēti balstoties uz pieteikumiem.
Vairāk informācijas par darbnīcu te.
Pieteikšanās dalībai tiks izsludināta atsevišķi!
Into the Wild collage, by Viktorija Eksta