Thoughts on Artificial Hells

Clair Bishop and thoughts on Artificial Hells.

 

Artificial Hells by Claire Bishop available here: https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Hells-Participatory-Politics-Spectatorship/dp/1844676900/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PIRSVQ074MVT&keywords=artificial+hells+claire+bishop&qid=1573150658&sprefix=artificial+hells+clair+%2Caps%2C751&sr=8-1

Clair Bishop in 'Artificial Hells' elaborates on the fact that artistic interest in collaborations and participatory projects have been on the rise since the early 1990's (2012:1). A utopian re-thinking of arts and relationship thereof as a collective voice.

"To grasp participatory art from images alone is almost impossible," (Bishop 2012:5) Images are just "fragmentary evidence" and nothing of the "affective dynamic" of what propels artists to do them or people to participate in them.


Todays participatory art strives to emphasize the process over the product and depends of the narration of first hand experience, which is subjective to the narrator.

For instance, as the "Teacher," I can tell you some the the areas the students navigated in creating our images such as:

Critical thinking in

What to show

How to actually create it

How to display/ lay it out it

How to make it fit

What angle to shoot

What colors to use

How to agree as a team (navigate group dynamics)

How to get it done by the deadline

How to gather the resources they need

How to view the final product

How to evaluate the experience

How to decide what to do different or the same the next time

But as a student, the process may have been more personal or the growth may have been in areas that I did not think to mention.

Both of us as participators may have a less objective view than an outsider, or even the classroom teacher who gets to observe the project but participates only in a supportive role.  However her commitment to her students and their success would still impose a bias in general.

If the project has two purposes, one for intrinsic growth of the participants and the second being the effect had on viewers, then the evaluation must be duel as well, and may not fall on a specific grid of numbered success, and contain a looser time scale as Bishop explains that some projects have more significance in the future days then the time that they are created (2012:7).

This may be demonstrated in that instead of this project containing 10 year olds producing valued pieces of society-moving art, but a seed being planted about choices and exhibition of voice that may grow into the fruit of something larger per the individual.

A 'switch' on a railroad track setting a new path to something unknown at this point.

 Because there is a balance between what the project produces and the process, I hope to have a meaningful output, something valuable within its circle of influence, even if it be a limited one. There must remain this balance between the process and the output. Participatory art walks a fine line facing both the social sphere and then again toward its own self.   

On Authorship;
Roland Barthes reminds us in 1968 that any authorship is indebted to many others (Barthes in Bishop 2012:9)

Thanks to total saturation in today's image market our senses may be dulled by spectacle and repetition and French writer and film maker Guy Debord, encouraged 'action' or interaction as the solution to 're-humanize' the art experience (Bishop 2012).

Participatory art is less about visual commodities and more about social change (Bishop 2012:13) and authorship becomes collaborative.

Participation should be more than just a buzzword.
And the term ART can be used lightly, leaning more toward the end product than something judged in the same category as a Picasso.

Oda Projesi used art to create relationships between people (Lind in Bishop 2012).
There is an ethical criteria that boosts the critique of collaborative art.  Its meaning is in its story, which is perceived to go deeper than surface of a single author art piece.

Bishop focuses on two contemporary tendencies in participatory art: delegated performance and petagogic projects (Krivickas, J.H,).  Mine falls into the latter.  Helping students "forge a closer connection between art and life," (Bishop 2012: 241).

Thomas Hirschhorn, the Paris based sculptor known best for his large scale social projects typically formed with residents near their making,  defines the real 'participation' in art as thinking! (Hirschhorn in Bishop 2012:260)

BISHOP, Claire. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso.

KRIVICKAS, J. H. Bishop, Claire. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Library Journal, [s. l.], n. 13, p. 91, 2012. Disponível em: <https://search-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.299258479&site=eds-live>. Acesso em: 7 nov. 2019.

Tips from Amy Simmons

Stock curtsey of Envato

Week 7 Falmouth Presentation with Amy Simmons, a London-based integrative producer often commissions people by looking at their personal work- not their commercial.

This rings true as I have been approached for commercial commissions thanks to the viewing of my personal work. 

One thing I took away from Amy's vast array of experience is how much collaboration can be involved.  Art directors, clients, curators, producers, etc.  Knowing your role and your end of the business is key in everything coming together smoothly.

Helpful acronyms or business vocabulary:

OOH- Out of Home- 6 sheets, 48 sheets (billboard), printed for out doors
DOOH- Digital Out of Home- Escalated panels, screen posters- sometimes animated
DM- Direct Marketing- flyers through your door, etc.  
Internal Com- using in their own agency
Press- Newspaper or magazine ads
POS- Point of Sale
Online media- on a website, sometimes includes social.


Facebook- landscape
Instagram-square
SnapChat- portrait

Make sure you know when you can show the work on your own portfolio- what is the 'live' date?


TIPS to be remembered:
Get the list of agencies and make sure you have the correct contact!  You can call the reception desk to ask if your not sure.

Send emails with embedded images.  So they can see it at a glance.

Send printed content- post cards etc.

Arrange a portfolio viewing- they will remember you more if they meet you in person.

NETWORK! NETWORK! NETWORK!

Go to private views, attend events, meet, chat, send a website link the next day.  Take part in agency charity exhibitions, or charity art shows.  Get involved.

Then return phone calls and emails promptly.  You may loose out on opportunities.

Portfolio tips:
Make sure it is printed high quality and is professional looking.
Clean of fingerprints etc.  Plastic sleeves are ok.
Keep it well edited and keep the week projects out.  Smaller and Stronger is better than more.  Get assistance if needed.
Don't take an ipad- unless you have good reason.  Screens are less effective and less desirable.  Possibly ok for animations where screens are needed.
Let THEM look through at their own rate, hand it to them and let them ask questions etc. But feel free to explain and give context to your work. Share your stories.

Always have a business card or postcard to leave behind.
No an agency's clients and ask questions.
BE YOURSELF!

Wendy Ewald and LTP

My takings on the book:

Available Here: EWALD, Wendy. I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children

Wendy Ewald has collaborated with children, women and families in the art of photography for over 40 years (Ewald 2016).  Her work has crossed many continents, races, ages, socioeconomic status and pretty much every other boundary you can think of.

She encourages women and children to use cameras to take a look at their lives, and also their fantasies and dreams.

In her book, I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children, Ewald introduces what she as termed LTP; Literacy Through Photography.  

Ewald goes through her experiences and her recommended processes in a way that would be very helpful to a teacher and or photographer hoping to work with children or anyone else in a similar way.  She breaks down photography usage beneficial for benefits in its patrons such as language adaptation, cultural understanding, multicultural exploration, or simply taking children's writing to the next level.

This book is somewhat different than her past publications as its purpose is to actually explain the process Ewald goes through in her work (Katzew 2003).

Wendy acclaims that visuals are a child's first language and means of expression (2002:7) and that children's pictures are their voices (2002:10).

Children are searching for ways to understand life around them, to process it, and then to learn to manipulate it.  Photography allows them this expression.

Although Ewald warns that teaching photography to children must be done responsibly and with technical and conceptual tools.  Any image that a child takes is not necessarily golden, and free expression in photography alone is not enough to make a change (2002:163-4).

My own thoughts: Ewald's program has many good merits that should not be easily dismissed.  She is excellent at engaging those that become part of her program, and she brings to the surface deep and critical thinking as well as passion. She definitely gives a 'voice' to her participants.  However, although Ewald promotes her book as using photography to deepen multicultural understanding and cross boundaries created by race/color/socioeconomic status I feel her book and the projects she and the children produce seem to promote stereotypes, not discourage them.  In poverty areas they illustrate poverty.  In areas separated by color she focuses ON color and their differences.  She encourages them to photograph their dreams - keeping the term limited to the fantasies one has when they are sleeping or daydreaming. I wonder about breaking out of the box their in - about illustrating their dreams for something real, for change, for a future? Or something different, how they are valued, how they are more than their labels.  Some of this does emerge, but it seems to be secondhand.  All in all, I do appreciate her work and how it has evolved over time.   



EWALD, Wendy. 2016. 'Wendy Ewald Photographer.' [online] Available at: http://wendyewald.com/about/ [accessed October 2019].

EWALD, Wendy. 2002. I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children. Beacon Press: Boston. 

KATZEW, ADRIANA. 2003. ‘I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children’. Harvard Educational Review. Available at: http://search.proquest.com/docview/212263467/.

Jole Sartore: How Can Photography Help the Environment

Fig. 1: Slade 2019

As photographers what are our obligations to 'give back?' There are many options and viewpoints on this subject.

According to Jole Sartore one of those is to use photography to engage their viewers to think more closely, and recognize what is happening to our Planet Earth and Resources.

According to Jole, its not responsible journalistically to simply show beautiful animals in beautiful nature anymore. But we must show the threats to these beautiful animals as well.

"Photography can do a huge service in two ways.

It can expose environmental problems as nothing else can, and it can help get people to care. The stakes could not be higher." (Satore 2019)

You do not have to be published or professional to do this- even local photographers can have a tremendous impact on showing their audience what is happening environmentally, and Jole sites the International League of Conservative Photographers as an example.  

Jole is the founder/creator of the project 'The Photo Ark.' A project with the duel purpose of documenting each specie, and getting people to care before its too late.   SEE more about his project here: https://www.joelsartore.com/photo-ark/




Figure 1: Bren SLADE. 2019.  Plastics in My Kitchen. Private Collection.

SATORE, Jole. 2019. [online] Available at: https://www.joelsartore.com/photo-ark/ [accessed October 2019].

Community and Participatory Art

Why can participating in community art can produce positive outcomes:


Being seen
Having a Voice
Problem Solving


Participatory art can bridge the gap between production and consumption.  "Participatory arts agendas have focused on creative production and active engagement in the consumption of art associated with a range of fine and applied practices alongside a focus on ‘widening participation’ to encourage artistic expression from more excluded social groups." (Clements 2011).

Does an average group of elementary age children count as an excluded social group? Often in today's society the voices of the 'excluded' social groups become so loud the 'average' actually becomes equivalent with the unseen. These children will grow up to be tomorrow's handlers of society.  I'm interested to see what they will produce with the voice of photography.


"The suggestion of the term participant is that the person has an active role in the creation of the work of art, whereas the truth of much participatory contemporary art is that the participant simply becomes the medium for the artist to express whatever it is he or she is expressing. " (Street, cited in Clements 2011)

Create an atmosphere of dialogue and encourage self-directed learning by turning passive audiences (in this case children) into active subjects (Clements 2011) .

Take the children from

Consumers,
to Collaborators
and finally Producers of art.


Visual literacy is a child first language. 





CLEMENTS, Paul. 2011. 'The Recuperation of Participatory Arts Practices.' International Journal of Art and Design Education.  30(1) 18-30.

Shaw, W. (2009) Antony Gormley and Snobbery (online). Available at: www.artsandecology. rsablogs.org.uk/2009/03/24/antony-gormleyand-snobbery (accessed 8th July 2009)

Shirley Read

"...when I'm researching I'm still looking back fourteen years and thinking about the line that runs through and joins up my work."

-Simon Norfolk (Read and Simmons 2016)

What is at the CORE?

What are my 'authentic concerns' as a photographer.

These are the questions discussed by Shirley Read in her chapter: Finding and Knowing- Thinking about Ideas in Photographers and Reasearch (Read and Simmons 2016).  

The work may be expressed in various ways but typically there is an underlying concern that drives the images.  This may come from passion or life experience. 

For instance, Simon Norfolk is known for his work featuring landscapes of war.  At his core is "time, the strata of time, photography as archeology and archeology as photography" (Read and Simmons 2016).

While the shyness Georgina McNamara in her youth, contrasted with her bold personality adapted as a compensating teen became the core of her images featuring either concealment or revealing (Read and Simmons 2016).

Fig. 1: McNamara. Bay, Unicorn, and Pile.

  

Finding the core of your photography is a combination of life experience, research and making work.  

Sometimes you may feel your concerns and recognize your core from the on-start.  More likely it reveals itself through chosen projects and images.  Sometimes it's pointed out to you from the observations of others.  But what's in your core often defines what and who you choose to work with, and how you represent them.  

Figure 1. Georgiana MCNAMARA. From: READ, Shirley and Mike SIMMONS. 2016. Photographers and Research. Focal Press.

READ, Shirley and Mike SIMMONS. 2016. Photographers and Research. Focal Press. 

Literary Based Art

Fig. 1: Master1305

Educators that cross the early learning and art fields indicate the importance of integrating activities expressive in nature within the cognitive domain (Kim 2017)

Some developmentally appropriate ways that art crosses curriculum standards is:

•Recognizing perception and presentation
•Symbols and meaning construction
•Visual literacy
•Analytical and critical thinking skills


"Research has focused on broad areas in the arts and children’s learning, such as the impact of academic programmes in which the arts are integrated and the impact of examination of visual images on thinking in general," (Kim 2017)


Figure 1. Master1305. 'Mosaic puzzle art for kids.' Envato. Available at: https://elements.envato.com/mosaic-puzzle-art-for-kids-childrens-creative-DHTBLN6
[accessed with license July 2019]

Kim, K. J., Wee, S.-J., Han, et. all.  (2017). Enhancing children’s art appreciation and critical thinking through a visual literacy-based art intervention programme. International Journal of Education through Art, 13(3), [online] https://doi-org.byui.idm.oclc.org/10.1386/eta.13.3.317_1 [accessed July 2119]

Another Approach

Additional approaches to Collaborative Photography.

Fig. 1: Taken by Jenna (age 10) 2019

Problem Solving.

Problem solving was the basis in the research conducted revolving around Kurdish migrant workers in London who were having work problems.  The object was understand the problems and how they attempted to solve them.  This was a good example of the leaders/ photographers learning to let go of control and preconceived ideas in order to let the participants 'voices' come through.  They learned to 'speak' with the lens of the camera (Hogate, Keles, and Kumarappan 2012).


Expression of Self and Relationship Building.

In the project titled, 'Thru the Lenz.' counseling / psychology graduate students collaborated with high school students in what they call a "participatory action research project."or a PAR where the participants document their lives with photography (Goessling and Doyle 2009).

"Thru the Lenz focused on photography as a way for teenagers to teach others about their lives and communities. Through a collaborative process, counseling psychology master’s level graduate students partnered with high school students to develop community relationships, exchange expertise and skills, and creatively express themselves to people in power," (Goessling and Doyle 2009). 


Figure 1. Image taken by Jenna (age 10) at our summer workshop, 2019.

GOESSLING, K.; DOYLE, C. 2009. Thru the Lenz: Participatory Action Research, Photography, and Creative Process in an Urban High School. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health. 4 (343–365). [online] Available at:  <http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=46837956&site=ehost-live>. [accessed July 2019].

HOLGATE, J.; KELES, J.; KUMARAPPAN, L. 2012. 'Visualizing “community”: an experiment in participatory photography among Kurdish diasporic workers in London'  Sociological Review,  60 (2) [online] Available at: <http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=76609129&site=ehost-live>. [accessed July 2019]. 

Jo Spence and Rosy Martin

Re-enactment 

 Phototherapy

As discussed in some of my previous points, all of us are continually exposed and bombarded with endless visual media- confronting or seducing our gaze, and encompassing the entirety of feelings;  grief, desire, loss, pain, excitement, horror, envy, joy, inadequacy and so on.  Rosy Martin elaborates that in the everyday world we deal with the parts of ourselves we can not face by putting them off on others and the media doesn't help by exposing continually the 'dominant cultural stories' leaving the rest unseen and untold (Martin 2001).

Starting in 1983, when Martin teamed up with the late Jo Spence, they began to tell their stories using their therapeutic relationship and a safe space to examine their experiences from multiple points of view, working class women, LGBT in Martins case, and Jo Spence facing cancer (Martin 2001).

Jo Spence had been experimenting with this venue of therapy since her diagnosis, mostly by necessity seeking her own psychotherapeutic help. Spence took note of her work, in highlighting the divide between autodidactic and certified professional therapy (Dennet 2001).

Bringing together both disciplines of both photography and therapy in radical new ways.  Re-enactment of the psychodrama not limited to the past, but including projections of the future as well.  Photography images created along the way.

In their phototherapy re-enactments, the everyday person can become the protagonist in a series filmic stills, and symbolically represent their own story.  A recreation of your own story, by consciously replacing your own person into your own experiences or roles, as well as the roles of those significant in your life.  The purpose to transform your inner psyche into new possibilities and to promote healing and self awareness (Martin 2001).

In the end, embodiment and ownership are fundamental to this process.  The goal is for those who participate to 'own' their own experiences and histories, including their own previous distresses, traumas and pain that may have been previously denied.  The photographs produces are then worked through in the counseling sessions.  Spence and Martin characterized their practice as an extension of the 'family album' and domestic photography (Martin 2001)

"This work is concerned with making psychic realities visible. It recognizes and uses the power of visual imagery in constructing, not revealing, the subject. In the performance of the selves the multiplicity and complexity of identities is made apparent." - Rosy Martin 2011






DENNETT, T., 2001. The wounded photographer: The genesis of Jo Spence's camera therapy. Afterimage, 29(3), pp. 26-27.

MARTIN, R., 2001. The performative body: Phototherapy and re-enactment. Afterimage, 29(3), pp. 17-20.

Barbara Probst

Barbara Probst

The queen of multiple points of view.  2 cameras, 12 cameras, simultaneously with a remote.  The way she displays keeps you eyes ping ponging around picking up previously missed details (Sholis 2006).

Fig. 1: Probst 2015.

In many of her displays the images are shown side by side, in juxtaposition and in equal and symmetrical spaces, giving each perspective equal weight and value in the final display.

Many photographs have details, but Probst's photographs ARE the details!

Details might move us in a photograph that we may miss as an eyewitness. Perspective photography turns "what-has-been" into "what-could-have-been"  (Probst 2014).

What interests me in exploring perspective photography is the transfer it can have in the classroom, and the curriculum it can cross.  Geometry, science, literature.  Multiple sides of the same story.  Problem Solving.  Critical Thinking.  

Fig. 2 & 3: Taken by Samantha and Katie at my summer workshop 2019.

Figure 1: Barbara PROBST. 2015. Exposure #114: N.Y.C., 368 Broadway, 02.05.15, 12:13 p.m. [online]. Available at: http://barbaraprobst.net/works/ [acessed July 2019]

Figure 2 & 3: Samantha and Katie 2019. Exploring multiple perspectives. Taken as part of my summer photography workshop.  

PROBST, B. 2014. What Could Have Been. [online] Available at: https://barbaraprobst.net/press/what-could-have-been/ [accessed July 2019].  

SHOLIS, B. 2006. Barbara Probst. Artforum International, 44, pp. 292

Vivian Paley and Storytelling

Fig. 1 Bren Slade 2019.

Vivian Gussin Paley is an expert on play and storytelling in the classroom.  She has a great ability "...to attend to what emerges in the spaces between academic activities." (Harvard 2011). She has authored dozens of books on the subject and received numerous awards.

 In A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play, she writes, “There was a time when play was king and early childhood was its domain,” (Paley in American Journal of Play 2009).

Now she sees 'play' dying out, as preschools and kindergarten become more 'academic' based and the time for free play and imagination is eliminated, even discouraged.  We are basically robbing our children two or three years of spontaneous, imaginative play (American Journal of Play 2009).  If children use play and imagination to process their world, what is happening to their brain development during these key developmental years?

Fig. 2: Photo Luke age 7, co-edited with Bren Slade.  

Children often use storytelling outlets to process the world around them.  Their fact becomes woven into fiction and expressed through dramatic play.  THEN the record of that dramatic play is often expressed through their physical art creations AS imagery is child's first language. But both imaginative play and production of art are being dissolved and hidden away, stomped by the more pressured academia of reading, writing and math.  

Paley emphasizes that play is not just a hobby or frivolous means in which children waste time- but a very serious and complicated occupation requiring dialogue, social engineering, problem solving and abstract thinking (American Journal of Play 2009).

If children are not allowed to free play how will they know how to be?  If children are not allowed to create art and images, how will they know to consume them in a healthy and appropriate way?  

"In dramatizing a concept, the child finds the natural method for concentration and continuity and satisfies the intuitive belief in hidden meanings." (Paley 1990. 6)

  





PALEY, VIVIAN GUSSIN. 1990. The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Harvard Educational Review 2011. Paley Vivian Gussin "Voices Inside Schools: Getting to Know Derek". Harvard Educational Review 81(4), 745–50.

The American Journal of Play 2009. The Importance of Fantasy, Fairness, and Friendship in Children’s Play An Interview with Vivian Gussin Paley. Vol. 2. No. 2. [online] Available at: https://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/2-2-interview-paley-fantasy-fairness-friendship.pdf [accessed July 2019].

A Quick History of Visual Literacy

Discussion of 'visual literacy' surfaced in the 1960's as teaching and education in general became under scrutiny (Michelson 2017). The world was evolving and education was lagging behind the times.

Fig. 1: AboutImages

For the next 50 years perspectives on what defined visual literacy ranged from aesthetics to neurophysiology, but in the last decade educators have finally agreed somewhat on what the term can mean (Michelson 2017).

As outlined in the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2011), the visually literate person should be able to do the following:

• Determine the nature and extent of the visual materials needed
• Find and access needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently
• Interpret and analyze the meanings of images and visual media
• Evaluate images and their sources
• Use images and visual media effectively
• Design and create meaningful images and visual media
• Understand many of the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and access and use visual materials ethically (Hattwig 2011)

This, of course is targeted (as titled)  for HIGHER EDUCATION. But what about children, specifically in grades k-8?  Is visual literacy something that children need to be educated on? And is visual education, at any young level, even possible?

Fig. 2: Yarruta

Paul Messaris, in his book Visual Literacy; Image, Mind & Reality notes that you learn how to interpret media through experience AND instruction, similar to learning a language. And the more the experience with visual media, the greater the interpretation.  Visual education can also possibly increase awareness of media manipulation, as well as increase appreciation for the artistic skill in its creation (1994).

Children are natural observers of the image.  They learn to 'read' visuals well before the written word.  Case in point -----have you ever googled the word 'ELMO'

Fig. 3: Google Images "Elmo" search (screenshot by author)

Its scary, I know I'm sorry.  But any kid from 1990-2000 could identify this guy faster than their own parents.  

And don't forget the 'Joe Camel' incident of 1991, when claims came out that more children could identify the smoke-wanting camel than Mickey Mouse or Fred Flintstone(1):

In todays society, children are literally bombarded with media and images, educational, art, video games, memes, television, movies, social media, apps, interest boards.....

 even if parents are heeding to pediatric recommendations of 2 hour limits for screen time (Ghose 2013) some kids average 8!  Teens up to 11! Keeping to just two hours daily still equals over 5,800 hours of media and image consumption by AGE 10! (and that's if they don't start until age 2).

 What kind of education are we giving our kids about what they are visually consuming?  

How much money is spent every year (and how many hours of our American 'First Lady's time) on educating kids about what they are taking in physically, i.e. on making healthy food choices? (even McDonald's tries to promote the 'healthy' part of a happy meal). 

 What about our children's intellectual, emotional, spiritual health? 

They are getting the 'experience.'   But where is the INSTRUCTION!

Fig. 4: McMurdo 2015.

Figure 1. ABOUTIMAGES. Education. Envato [online] available at: https://elements.envato.com/education-PRTXRYU [accessed with rights 15 July 2019].

Figure 2. YARRUTA. Innovation Technology and Education Concept.  Envato [online] available at: https://elements.envato.com/innovation-technology-and-education-concept-P7KHPLC [accessed with rights 15 July 2019].

Figure 3. Google Images "Elmo" Search (screenshot by author) [accessed 15 July 2019]

DEBES, J. L. 1974. “Chapter 8. visual literacy,” American Education in the Electric Age: New Perspectives on Media and Learning, ed. Peter L. Klinge (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications, 1974), 113

Figure 4. Wendy MCMURDO. 2015. Algorithmic Children; Algorithmic Girl iv. Available Online at: http://wendymcmurdo.com/photography/algorithmic-children/ [accessed 15 July 2019]

GHOSE, Tia. 2013. "Pediatricians: No More Than 2 Hours Screen Time Daily For Kids." Scientific American. Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pediatricians-no-more-than-2-hour-screen-time-kids/ [accessed 15 July 2019]. 

HATTWIG, Denise, et al. 2011. ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) [online] Available at: 

http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy [accessed 15 July 2019]

MESSARIS, Paul. 1994. Visual Literacy; Image, Mind, & Reality. Westview Press: Oxford. 

MICHELSON, Alan. 2017. "A Short History Of Visual Literacy; the First Five Decades." Art Libraries Journal. Cambridge University Press. [online] Available at: https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=ad3c67aa-52a8-4a9e-a212-ce8b417f9096%40sessionmgr102 [Accessed 15 July 2019] 

(1)University of Alabama, College of Community Health Sciences, Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society. [online] Available at: https://csts.ua.edu/cartoonists/the-industry/joe-camel/#toggle-id-1 [accessed 15 July 2019].

Wendy McMurdo

Wendy McMurdo has always been interested in play and the unguarded space of the child's imagination.  In the early 1990's she began to be interested in how children were engaging with technology.  This led her to work with the elementary schools, and how the new technology was also affecting the traditional visits to the museums (Sawa 2018).

Fig. 1: McMurdo 1999. Girl With Bears

McMurdo expands on the sense of anxiety the children briefly experience when exposed to the unusual experience of close proximity to what they would deem an unnerving experience.  "Is it alive or is it dead?" They often ask the guards (Sawa 2018).

She then connects that children don't go to museums as frequent, or at all- now they turn to technology for that experience and learning.

Her study grows more and more poignant each year as society's children are no longer just exposed, but more accurately bombarded with technology in multiple forms, educationally or otherwise.

The angst and unsettling feeling of the 'unfamiliar' that children used to experience once or twice a year can now barrage them on a daily basis, from exotic lands to violent movie clips and games that kill for fun, perhaps leaving them constantly asking (as Suzanne Collins coined) "Real or Not Real" (2008).

With this new train of thought I may have just had an AHA! moment about my project.   Stay tuned!

Figure 1. Wendy MCMURDO. 1999. From: Dale Berning Sawa. 2018. 'Wendy McMurdo's Best Photograph: Two Bears Eye Up a Little Girl.' From: The Guardian 16 August [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/16/wendy-mcmurdo-best-photograph-girl-bears-museum [accessed 11 July 2010].


Collins, Suzanne. 2008. The Hunger Games. Scholastic Press.

SAWA, Dale Berning. 2018. 'Wendy McMurdo's Best Photograph: Two Bears Eye Up a Little Girl.' The Guardian 16 August [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/16/wendy-mcmurdo-best-photograph-girl-bears-museum [accessed 11 July 2010].

On Collaborative Photography and Anthony Luvera

Fig. 1: Luvera 2016. Collaboration in Research and Artistic Practice.

In a round table edition of Photoworks Annual,  Ben Burbridge notes that collaborative photography, or sometimes termed community photography, is continually growing in greater interest.  And the lines between creators, subjects and audiences are becoming blurred together (Burbridge et. all 2014). 

I am interested in exploring this form of photography since I hope to experiment with it in a workshop I am hoping to hold in August.  However the thought of this is somewhat terrifying for me since I have never done anything like this in photography before, and definitely consider it out of my comfort zone. 

Anthony Luvera, was a guest speaker at Falmouth University on June 25th 2019, and I found myself taking some fast and furious notes on the subject! (I didn't catch it live- since it was 4am my time - apparently my true love for photography has its limits!- but I was able to watch the taping of it later on).  Good timing since collaboration was the theme for this weeks activities in Surfaces and Strategies. 

Anthony has worked many years as subjects as participants, with a variety in range from metal health, addictions, homelessness, at-risk kids, LGBTQ etc. 

Some of the terms associated with his work are:
Participatory
Collaborative
Socially Engaged

Luvera (and I have heard Wendy Ewald stress this as well) emphasized the importance of the process as much as the end result.  (Wendy goes a step further to include the viewing of the final project,  in their community as just as an important process of the project as well).

This is what I find interesting - Luvera mentioned that participatory art appears enabled and unmediated, but in reality it just asserts the subject more directly into the artists interpretation of the subject themselves.  This resonates as truth to me and is how I have been feeling about the whole participatory project (projects where authenticity is invoked but also questioned).  If the subject and the author explore the process over a period of time, and pedagogy is involved, the subject may still be heavily influenced by the photographer or director and 'led' in a direction.  If the photographer or leader works together to create the final product; the what, how, where, and when, then their mark is left in that area as well.  I've observed that this is why the term 'in degrees' is used often when talking about the control of the project. 


Later for me:

Its really got me thinking- what will be my technical, methodological, strategical, and conceptual ideas?  How will it best be facilitated and contextualized?  And how will authorship come into play?

What kind of specific activity or activities can I facilitate to cultivate the contribution of my participants- what will be my methodology?  Since this is just a trial run the methodology won't be spread out over much time, but will be condensed into one setting.  Hopefully there will still be insight.

Children often use art and imagination to process the world around them, and art (usually in the form of drawing) to express it. I hope to add photography as a useful medium in there desire to do so. 

Who will I partnership with?

Can collaboration with the 'mindfulness' exercises for children be beneficial?

My collaborative project and images won't really be about power or social justice.  But focusing (more similarly with Wendy Ewalds work) on how children view and communicate through imagery, and how they can use photography to understand, express, and process the world around them. 


Figure 1: Luvera 2016. Collaboration in Research and Artistic Practice. Available at: http://www.luvera.com/ [accessed online June 29 2019].

BURBRIDGE, BEN; LUVERA, ANTHONY; DAW, MATT; DEWDNEY, ANDREW; STACEY, NONI; DOLBERG, EUGENIE. 2014. 'Roundtable: Community Photography, Now and Then.' Photoworks Annual.  Issue 21, p126-150. Available at: https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=f54a72f3-1788-42f8-8b95-5a6cb0877e01%40sessionmgr102

LUVERA, A. 2019. Guest Lecture with Anthony Luvera. Falmouth Universtiy. Available (with login) at: https://falmouthflexible.instructure.com/courses/249/conferences

Wendy Ewald

Wendy Ewald has been contributing to collaborative photography for over 40 years.  Wendy is of particular interest to me because she does much of her collaborating with children.

Fig. 1: Ewald 2005. American Alphabet.

In an interview with Anthony Luvera, published by Photoworks Annual in 2013, Wendy goes into detail more about her thoughts and processes:

Wendy got her first taste for education when her brother was hit by a car at 5 years old.  She and her sister were engaged in his rehabilitation process and she sometimes innovated practices that helped him beyond what the adults were instructing.

She started her educational career with education in mind, but couldn't get away from her pull to photography, although her talent in the field of education and her interest in human development remained alive and active.

Ewald was influence by education researchers such as Vivian Paley's work with how children use storytelling as a form of socialization.  Also of interest was Lucy Calkins who found that children draw and draw as a form of communication. She used these ideas to direct her work.  (The bold is added for personal reference so I can research these ideas further as I feel they are also directly applicable to my own project.)

Also emphasized is that the process is directly intertwined with the product, and with as much aesthetic involved.  By creating something together there are layers there that wouldn't exist otherwise.

She mentions some mistakes she has learned along the way, some cultural errors that occurred, such as communities that don't welcome people toting cameras.  But everywhere she goes she tries to leave resources behind (Ewald and Luvera 2013).

Ewald collaborates with children.  She shares process of visually representing their lives and cultures with the children themselves.  Their 'social reality,' (Hyde 2005).

"In describing her artistic approach, Wendy Ewald has said "it doesn't interest me to put a frame around somebody's world... it interests me to help bring pictures out of that world." -(Woolcock cited in Hyde 2005).

Her roles of teacher and artist blend as she intentionally creates "Situations in which I allowed others perceptions to surface with my own," (Ewald cited in Hyde 2005).

She challenges the children to find their own solutions.  She calls her work "Literacy Through Photography," and sees it fitting neatly within the standard curriculum skills of reading, writing, visual media and critical thinking (Hyde 2005).


Much of the methodology and pedagogy Ewald uses may be helpful in my upcoming project work.  I just ordered a copy of her book and I am excited to explore it once it arrives!

Figure 1. Wendy EWALD. 2005. American Alphabet.  Available at: https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=6f9a6a9c-61ea-490b-af19-450089f288f3%40pdc-v-sessmgr02  [accessed June 29 2019]


EWALD, Wendy and Anthony LUVERA. 2013. 'Tools for Sharing: Wendy Ewald in conversation with Anthony Luvera.' Photoworks Annual.  Issue 20, p48-59. Available at:  https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=6f9a6a9c-61ea-490b-af19-450089f288f3%40pdc-v-sessmgr02 [accessed June 29 2019]

HYDE, Katherine. 2005. 'Portraits and Collaborations: a reflection on the work of Wendy Ewald.' Visual Studies. 20 (172-190). [online] Available at: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=26747df7-d5ec-44a2-ae16-5c8ad58661db%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=18363714&db=sih [accessed July 2019]