During the month I spent in Mexico, I met several other artists and educators to share practice and exchange ideas. I was invited on a studio visit to see the beautiful work of Miguel Angel Ricardez, learned a huge amount about Mexican art, politics, culture and history (as well as eating what probably amounts to several kilos of tortillas).
On my return to London in mid June I needed some time away from my images to be able to come to them afresh. The luxury of not having a deadline to share the work gave me this freedom. Working with film always helps with this need for space as I have to wait for the film to be processed and scanned. After a couple of weeks I collected the work, had an initial look then put it aside. After such a consuming and intense experience I struggle to look objectively without a gap of several weeks. After 3 months (I hadn’t intended to wait quite this long!) I’ve started to finally edit my work and share it with those who took part.
ITESO have asked if I am interested to return and teach a summer project again in 2018, something that will be confirmed in the new year. During our student sharing on the last day at ITESO a painting lecturer joined us. He was very interesting in the processes i’d used to encourage the students understanding and explorations of contemporary photography. He has just set up a new course and has invited me to be involved in some way, hopefully this will also work. It’s always am exciting challenge to teach abroad as you bring a different way of thinking, cultural references and understandings with you, the conversations are always stimulation.
Now it’s time to keep those connections going, consider what most interests me from the research process and how to develop those ideas, plus of course more funding. Also how best to share the final photographs.
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