Thinking very much this morning as I walked with Betty about power, access, hierarchies and ethics.
I used my second and final Re:view meeting with artist and curator Caroline Hick last week, to talk through the family photography project in depth; nail down what I wanted to do with it, who to work with, how to frame and structure it. The key thing I want to do is to find out how people use, and make meaning from their family photographs.
I want to collaborate in an equitable, non-hierarchical way with people on their family albums. I’ve done a lot of solo work in response to my own family album, and I want now to learn from others about how they might use their own family photographs, and the possibilities for creative collaboration around this. I’m interested in learning from people with different experiences, backgrounds and cultures from me, and in hearing stories that aren’t normally heard, or told. I want to create new contexts for dialogue to take place.So I want to work with non-artists, and people who might be described as ‘marginalised’. What is the experience of someone who is a refugee, who may have no, or few family photographs? What meanings might they attach to photographs? What are the possibilities for making new images?
I always come back to this quote by writer Annette Kuhn about family photography;
‘Images of former our lives are pressed into service in a never-ending process of making, remaking, making sense of, our selves—now’
Talking to Caroline about the ways I have worked with my own archive over the last few years, and showing her some examples of collages, books, zines, photographs and drawings that have formed my practice, she suggested because personal nature of my work, working one to one might work well. That felt kind of right. I would see the process as the quiet building up of a relationship, of sharing personal and creative responses, over time, using my work as a starting point for the sharing process. Making a collaborative piece of work, which takes away that direct autobiographical link, but which is informed by personal experiences and stories. This seems pretty exciting to me.
Of course, in finding people to work with, particularly people who might be vulnerable, needs a lot of thinking about and sensitivity.
A few months ago, a five year old boy told me a secret. When I asked him what it was, he whispered in my ear
‘with great power comes great responsibility’
Whether Spiderman said this or Voltaire, it doesn’t matter. It’s true.
As an artist going out into the world to work with people, you have a responsibility to engage with them as ethically and equitably as possible.This involves continually challenging yourself, being honest, and open, considering how and what you communicate, thinking about where the power is in any situation, and sometimes asking difficult questions.
These questions, posed by Nato Thompson, for an essay in the book “Living As Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1999 – 2011” seem apt
‘When is a project working? What are it’s intentions? Who are the intended audience? When is an artist simply using the idea of social work in order to progress her career?’
With these questions in mind. I’m taking tentative, speculative steps out ‘into the field’ to try to find people who might be interested in working with me.
Another quote, from the same book, from artist Rick Lowe
“Oftentimes as an artist, you’re trespassing into different zones…. Oftentimes… I know nothing. I have to force myself and find courage to trespass… Artists can license ourselves to explore in any way imaginable. The challenge is having the courage to carry that through.”
Full interview here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregory-sholette/act…
