Reciprocity

Been reading ‘Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age’ (Ed Del Loewenthal) this week – the book was kindly suggested by fellow a-n blogger Rodney Dee (www.a-n.co.uk/p/2422257) who is studying for an MA in Art Psychotherapy at Roehampton. I also met with M, an art psychotherapist based in Rochdale, who an art therapist friend put me in touch with.

The book is really tremendous. I was especially pleased to read an essay by Rosy Martin, who developed photo re-enactment techniques with the late Jo Spence. Martin has developed these tecniques further since Spence’s death in 1992 and uses it within her own practice. I am delighted to discover Martin’s work in this area, as when I first discovered the joint work by Spence and Martin via Spence’s book ‘Putting Myself in The Picture’ it had a big impact on me. That was way back on my Foundation course in 2001. Martin has written a fantastic article on their and her practices which can be found here

I showed her some autobiographical work I had done with one of my own photographs (of myself at 8 years old) and also the exhibition catalogue from Fotomanias 2011 showing the collaborative photography project I did with my mum

A pretty great week of research and meetings.

Had a lovely afternoon on Wednesday with Bradford based ethnographer and writer Irna Qureshi, (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/irna-qureshi) a very interesting and generous person who is always happy to share information and conversation. Earlier in the year I went to the closing event for a project she was involved with under the Connected Communities programme (http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Resear…) The project was a collaboration between herself, Leeds based historian William Gould http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/people/20030/faculty_o… and Sheffield based ethnographer Kate Pahl http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/education/staff/academi… in which they worked with a Pakistani family from Rotherham. Irna had worked closely with one memberof the the family, M, to uncover personal stories and family history. M, who attended the event, talked eloquently about the process of working with Irna, and how it had transformed her perceptions of her late father by discovering his early life through looking at his passport and other significant objects. This, she said had helped bring the family closer. Since going to this event, I have been thinking about this, which was evidently a powerful experience for M, and wondering how photographs might be able to be used in a similiar way.

Irna very kindly picked me up from the station in Bingley and fed me a delicious lunch (her mum’s dahl recipe – yum) and we had a few hours of talking around her enthography practice and also her own family album, which she very kindly shared with me. Irna has a very interesting role in relation to the production and archiving of her family photographs, which I will write about in a future post.

Then, on Thursday, a meeting with artist Caroline Hick and Jez Coram, in Caroline’s beautiful garden at her house in Leeds. We were meeting to explore how Jez and Caroline as ‘For The Love of the People’ collaboration, might work with me on the family photography project. As a starting point, we shared some photographs from each of our own personal archives under single sex groupings. This process of sharing was a powerful and bonding experience. As with looking at Irna’s album, there is a sense of intimacy, and also trust in looking at someone else’s family photographs. I’m still processing much of what we talked about, but we have arranged to meet again in a fortnight to develop our conversation further. It feels like a really organic exchange, with so many possibilities. The vibe with Carline and Jez is exploratory, open, trusting, playful. I’m really really happy to be working with them as part of the project.

Also been doing quite a bit of reading this week. I’m thinking abut different ways of documenting my research, as I think it’s interesting to trace (and attribute) the processes of my learning.

I’ve been experimenting with using Storify as a platform for some of my conversations, and thought it might be interesting way to try to present my research. What do you think?

http://storify.com/JeanMcEwan/family-photography-p…

Had a great day yesterday of free form researching (improv researching?) online.

Here’s what I found, starting with following this link from artist Lyndsey Perth on (https://twitter.com/lippi) on Twitter:

‘Manipulated Photographs, Manipulated Memories‘
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/28/manipulated-photog…
An interesting blog post by a neuroscientist working with memory – especially interested in the last paragraph about the use of photographs to strengthen autobiographical memoir, and this quote, in the final paragraph:
“we should begin to explore how photography can be used in both helpful and harmful ways. How should we as individuals and as a society use photography to help maintain an accurate and precise history?”
I then followed this link, which discussed how the brain makes memories from photographic images: ‘Memories, Photographs, and the Human Brain‘
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/20/memories-photograp…

Then, a look at visual anthropology, finding this website www.visualanthropology.net/‎which contains some useful links, papers and publications. I chanced upon a post on conference in 2003 at the Tate about the relationship between anthropology and art which I found intriguing. http://www.visualanthropology.net/reviews/moffat.p… I then had a look at the MA in Visual Anthropology course information at Manchester University – I’m hoping to chat to someone about to start the course and wanted to get a handle on what the subject involves.
http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/discipl…

I can’t remember how, but I then stumbled upon a book by Gillian Rose photography, ‘Doing Family Photography: The Domestic, the Public and the Politics of Sentiment’
http://iss.sagepub.com/content/27/5/621.extract
Gillan Rose is Professor of Cultural Geography at The Open University, and her current research interests lie broadly within the field of visual culture. Reading an excerpt, I found the text refreshingly directly and without jargon. I found her blog, which again is very accessible and wide-ranging ttp://visualmethodculture.wordpress.com/more-about-gillian-rose/
Though the print version of ‘Doing Family Photography’ is very expensive, I managed to find an ebook version on Scribd for just over £4 (the cost of a 24 hour subscription) http://www.scribd.com/doc/99659160/Gillian-Rose-Do….

I’m not far into it but I’m already completely hooked, as it focusses not just the content or the politics of domestic photographs, but how they are used:

“Family photos are particular sorts of images embedded in specific practices , and it is the specifity of those practices that define a photograph as a family photo as much as, if not more than, what it pictures. What is important in a family photograph is: who took it; who it shows; where and how it is kept; who made copies of it and sent them to other people; who those other people are; and how it gets looked at by all those people.”

This brings me back to my own key statement about what my own project is essentially about:

‘How people use, and make meaning from their family photographs’.

I suspect this book is going to open up so much new thinking and inquiry. Hurrah for the internet.

Oh, and I finally Storyfied my Twiiter and Facebook responses to the question ‘What do you do with your family photographs?”

https://storify.com/JeanMcEwan/what-people-do-with…

…Continued from last post

Caroline suggested that it might be good to take the brakes off in terms of the ACE application, and give myself to have further exploratory conversations with other collaborators, allowing myself to develop a firm sense of exactly who I want to work with, and how the project will work best. The only person imposing a deadline on the project is me – this is my project, and perhaps its needs more time to incubate.

I felt a palpable sense of relief after this conversation. The prospect of not having to spend the next fortnight struggling with trying to complete the ACE form while everyone else is enjoying the sun or on holiday, seems pretty seductive. I’ve got a few meetings lined up over the next few weeks – including with an ethnographer, and art therapist – and rather than the focus being ‘the ACE form’ – these conversations can perhaps be more exploratory and less directed. Also I can have time to research (I’ve ordered 2 books, Using Photographs in Social and Historical Research by visual sociologist Penny Tinkler and ‘Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age’ by Del Loewenthal http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/33510791/744196305/Phototherapy-and-Therapeutic-Photography-in-a-Digital-Age/ListingDetails.html?_$ja=tsid%3a13315%7ccat%3a33510791%7cprd%3a33510791 – which was kindly suggested by fellow a-n blogger Rodney Dee – thanks Rod! www.a-n.co.uk/p/2422257) so being able to have some reading, and maybe me of my own making time, seems good for now.

I’ll also be meeting up with Caroline and Jez later this week to start to explore ways we could collaborate on the project. I’m really pleased about this. Our starting point is groupings of archive images, and each of us is going to bring some of our own archival images – and looking at single sex groupings. Now feeling excited, not stressed.

A week of taking time, a rethink, a few changes

Had a useful and positive meeting last week with Rashmi Sudhir the Arts Enagagement Officer at Bradford Council , to talk over my ACE application. Rashmi was very positive about my proposal and the support/partners I have, in the involvement of Fabric, Caroline Hick as mentor, and Anne McNeill from Impressions Gallery contributing. She is happy to support my application with ACE and suggested She suggested that I read the Arts Council Plan document to gain a clear understanding of their 3 year plan and priorities, which could then inform how I artculate the rest of my application. I came away from the meeting feeling positive but also thinking that I need to crack on with the form – which is still only partially complete. Still a lot of work to do..

After the meeting I went straight up to Gallery II at Bradford University to meet with Caroline Hick and artist Jez Coram (http://www.jezcoram.co.uk/)/ Caroline had been in touch to say that she and Jez were developing some collaborative work (after working together on Jez’s ‘Corners’ project at Gallery II Late 2012/early 2013 http://www.jezcoram.co.uk/) and to invite me to talk about the possibilities of working with them.

Caroline and Jez explained their collaboration, called ‘For the Love of People’ – as an application, a set of projects, some small, some big, bringing together different artists and non-artists, exploring participatory work and actions in the wider community. Caroline and Jez’s concerns very much chime with my own – exploring ways of working meaningful projects towards social change – and having known and worked with Caroline on various different projects over the years ( most recently her as one of my Re:view artists) I am very keen to work further with her. I am also very interested in Jez’s participatory practice from having seen the ‘Corners’ show.. I’ve also heard good things about him from people I know and trust, so altogether it feels like a very good time to be having this conversation with both artists.

Caroline and Jez were interested in possibly collaborating with me on the family photography project. They are looking at working on and with film archives of local areas at the moment and thought that my work on family archives/material would work as a good parallel to this.I explained my over- riding concern at the moment upcoming deadline for ACE application (I had set myself the 9th August as submission day).

Talking around the progress of the project for the ACE application over past weeks, it became clear that this self imposed deadline might not be helpful: I haven’t yet managed to identify potential collaborators and some of the specialists I want to involve in the project, and also conversations which I have been having along the way are causing me to question and rethink some of the collaborations I had envisioned for the project. For example, a speculative conversation with a worker from a refugee support group last week revealed that working one to one with someone from a refugee/asylum seeking background on family photographic materials may not be appropriate or possible – as this is a hugely sensitive and potentially painful area for many who have had to flee their countries with nothing. I had been aware of the potential sensitivities involved in working with someone from this background, but also of the potential power of the possibility making/exploring ‘new’ images through creative collaboration. Talking to the worker over the phone and via email in more depth however made me realise that for an organisation with a duty of acre and ethical responsibility to protect their vulnerable clients, this is too much of a risk. The worker, after discussing possible involvement with her colleagues, came back and said no. This conversation has been good learning for me and I’m see it very much as part of the research process. Documenting it here, too, feels important – saying what doesn’t work, as well as what does, is equally, if not more useful.

continued next post..