today we had a meeting with alex schady in the morning addressing the situation, it was quite stressful. then we had our pg lecture which was really great, and the conversation afterwards was valuable too, a lot of it centering around representation and not feeling like you fit in (esp in an art gallery context). my notes are below + slides.
(useful interview on how he uses the archive photos in contemporary practice etc)
"LC: How did you first come across Spencer and Gillen’s archive? And how did you come up with the idea to pair such old photos with your contemporary practice? Were you inspired only by the archive itself or by other similarly styled projects?
CV: I have known the work of Baldwin W. Spencer and Frank J. Gillen since I first visited Australia in 1999, fresh out of high school. Later, when I began studying anthropology, I became more familiar with the context in which their work was produced. Their work is quite renowned within anthropology and it had a decisive impact on the work of Emile Dürkheim, Sir James Frazier and Sigmund Freud, to mention but a few.
The research and imagery that Spencer and Gillen produced over a period of four decades between 1876 and 1914 was highly influential around the turn of the 19th century, when evolutionist theories predominated. In many ways it represents one of the earliest examples of fieldwork-based anthropology. Naturally, today, more than a century later, these images and the ideas about human life surrounding their production take on a new meaning and become layered with time. By bringing the photographs back to where they were produced and using them as templates for new photographs I was hoping to invite the descendants to elaborate on what they saw in the photographs and to see what responses it engendered.
In the process of preparing for the project, I have been researching different approaches to archival based photography and one project that stands out, to me, is Simon Norfolk’s photographical dialogue with Irish photographer John Burke (1843?-1900) in Afghanistan, which I saw exhibited at Tate Modern in London in 2011.
Within anthropology, using photographs as points of departure for interviews and dialogues is a well-known method. Where my project departs from much anthropological work is in the creative “re-enactment” of the subject material. By inviting people in front of the camera to embody their ancestors and “reproduce” body postures, expressions etc., I was aiming to establish a particular space for critical reflection and dialogue, based on the source material. The original material was produced in a context of domination and control, and—like much photography—is contingent upon very specific power relations between anthropologist/photographer and “subjects” in front of the lens. I wanted to explore this tension critically together with the people I worked with. "
-------- paul's first lecture back.. art & popularity ..fine art and pop music?
