OVERVIEW
One Year Photography Program 2023
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 four physical workshop sessions in four 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 four European cities will act as inspirational environments to aid in the creative process. The locations for the 2023 program are Berlin, Warsaw, Athens and Budapest.
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 2023
BERLIN, 06-10 March: First workshop with David Campany, curator, writer, broadcaster, editor and educator.
WARSAW, 15-19 May: Second workshop with Rafal Milach, photographer and visual artist
ATHENS, 01-05 September: Third workshop with Laia Abril, visual artist, and Sylvia Sachini, director of Misc.Athens and co founder of VOID
BUDAPEST, 22-26 November: Fourth workshop with Tim Clark, writer, curator and educator, and Claudia Küssel, curator at FOAM and the Capa Center
Profiles of all the tutors are featured in the CONTRIBUTORS section.
BERLIN 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 very clear idea about the subject of their project and the visual strategies need to effectively express the subject. 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.
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 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 and Sylvia. Together in group discussions problems and possibilities will be critiqued. Laia will present her own work and explain her projects, books and visual techniques. 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.
BUDAPEST WORKSHOP with Tim Clark and Claudia Küssel
This final workshop will be hosted by the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center. Participants will benefit greatly with this partnership between The Capa Center and AFM. Tim Clark is the founder and editor of 1000 Words Contemporary Photography Magazine and a curator. This workshop will begin the process of finalising and editing projects 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.
CONCLUSION
The work produced by participants during the One Year Program will be exhibited as a presentation at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest in early 2024.
Useful websites:
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. 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.