OVERVIEW
One Year Program 2024
ArtFotoMode (AFM) offers an independent photography program over a twelve-month period in professional partnership with the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest.
The program is an educational framework within which participating photographers can research, develop and produce strong, concise and meaningful projects, exploring the challenging process of creative and intellectual visual strategies.
The emphasis of the program is experiential, and to study the production of works within the broad spectrum of the ‘documentary’ genre, engaging with the predominant dialogues within the photographic medium including issues related to the: subjective/objective, social/private, document/art. Understanding authorship, narrative and conceptual factors will be the key ingredients in finding the correct approach to the specific subject matter. Often over looked, is the human experience of how we see and perceive reality. Optics and how we visualise reality are key factors in building the foundation of photographic projects.
Over the course of the twelve-month period, there will be five physical workshop sessions in five European cities. Each series of sessions will be conducted by notable, renowned and experienced photographers, editors, and curators, as tutors. The aim of each workshop meeting is to make critical progress with the developing projects, both as a group and individual tutorials. Importantly, between the seminars, participants will be required to have monthly Skype/Zoom meetings with the AFM director, Michael Grieve, who will be the overseer of the entire program.
Participants can begin the program with projects that are in the early stages of development or begin with new projects.
The five European cities will act as inspirational environments to aid in the creative process. The locations for the 2024 program are Hamburg, Warsaw, Athens, Naples, Budapest and Berlin.
The AFM program is purely independent, and recognises the importance, and growing necessity, for intensive, experiential and less formal modes of photography education.
ROBERT CAPA CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY CENTER
The AFM One Year Program is in a professional partnership with the Capa Center, who will host the workshop at the meeting in Budapest.
PROGRAM 2024
HAMBURG, April 22-25: First workshop with David Campany, curator, writer, broadcaster, editor and educator.
WARSAW, June 3-7: Second workshop with Rafal Milach, photographer and visual artist; Michael Grieve, photographer and director of ArtFotoMode and Hamburg Werkstatt Fotografie
ATHENS, September 02-08: Third workshop with Laia Abril, visual artist; Taous Dahmani, art historian, writer and curator specialising in photography; Sylvia Sachini, director of Misc.Athens and co founder of VOID
NAPLES, November 01-04: Fourth workshop with Tobias Zielony, visual artist/photographer and professor at HFBK Hamburg
BUDAPEST, December: Fifth workshop with Claudia Küssel, curator at Capa Center and former curator at FOAM, and Peter Puklus, artist and photographer
BERLIN, February: Three days workshop with Tim Clark, founder of 1000 Words Magazine, writer, curator and educator, and Michael Grieve
Profiles of all the tutors are featured in the CONTRIBUTORS section.
HAMBURG WORKSHOP with David Campany
As the first workshop of the program, participants will present their portfolios and any works in progress. It will be important for David to better understand each individual’s intellectual and creative sensibility. The purpose of these 5-days is to propose project ideas, and for these ideas to be discussed in great detail in group discussions and individually. It will be a time for David to conduct lectures and presentations. Before participants leave they will have a clearer idea about the subject matter and the visual strategies needed to effectively realise the project.
WARSAW WORKSHOP with Rafal Milach
The second workshop will be a critical time to view projects in progress. This 5 day workshop will be an intensive period to constructively critique projects at the beginning of the process. At this juncture it is expected that participants will have photographs to put on the table. Rafa Milach considerable experience as a documentary photographer, visual artist and activist will help shape and inspire the direction of individual projects. We are invited to meet Katarzyna Sagatowska, curator and director of the Jednostka Gallery.
ATHENS WORKSHOP with Laia Abril, Taous Dahmani and Sylvia Sachini
The third workshop is a time when participants will have already researched and began their projects. Works in progress will be presented to Laia, Taous and Sylvia. Together in group discussions problems and possibilities will be critiqued. Sylvia will give talks about her experience as a book publisher with VOID and Misc.Athens. Participants will have a stronger idea of the direction of their projects and visual strategies. The workshop will take place at Misc.Athens.
NAPLES WORKSHOP with Tobias Zielony
The fourth workshop will focus more on practical/creative/concepts at this juncture of participants projects. Zielony is well experienced as a visual artist and professor at HFBK Hamburg and will give expertise advice to trouble shoot and move projects in the right direction. We will be given a private tour of Galleria Lia Rumma in Naples of which Zielony is represented.
BUDAPEST WORKSHOP with Claudia Küssel and Peter Puklus
This workshop will be hosted by the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center. Participants will benefit greatly with this partnership between The Capa Center and AFM. This workshop will begin the process of editing projects for possible exhibitions and book production. It will also be necessary to identify which projects demand a longer period of time to develop and which do not. Claudia Küssel will provide expert knowledge as regards the installation of exhibitions.
BERLIN WORKSHOP with Tim Clark and Michael Grieve
This workshop brings together all the work that has been achieved during the program. Questions asked are what has been produced and in which direction should you move towards. At this point photographers are at different stages. This workshop is also an opportunity to discuss the production of an AFM publication that will feature work that has been made together with text.
We have a special invitation to meet the curator and writer, Thomas Weski, at the Michael Schmidt Archive, and to have a private view of the archive at the Kicken Gallery.
Useful websites:
https://kow-berlin.com/artists/tobias-zielony
www.hamburgwerkstattfotografie.com
Michael Grieve/Director of ArtFotoMode
Since 2010 I have been a senior lecturer at universities and taught at independent schools of photography. I now teach at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, an independent school of documentary photography in Berlin. In 2023 I founded the Hamburg Werkstatt Fotografie, a space for education/exhibitions/events in Hamburg. I have experienced the teaching of photography first hand and have concluded that independent forms of photographic education are the way forward. The AFM program is offering new possibilities, built and inspired by the old forms of photography education, such as the Werkstatt für Photographie in Berlin during the 80’s, conducted by Michael Schmidt, that brought many great photographers to teach in its humble abode, and the Stockholm School of Photography, directed by Christer Stromholm in the 60’s and 70’s. Contemporary alternative schools of photography can be found in Europe, each with their unique vision, including documentary based Ostkreuzschule für Fotofrafie in Berlin, and the more intimate Atelier Smedsby in Paris. The ethos is for photographers to come together with a shared belief in the medium, and produce meaningful projects within an intense yet informal framework. Even if the camera is directed away from oneself the emphasis is always on the subjective experience.