Ade Hunter
Photographing the Connecting Art & Anthropology Workshop
Arrival, then a quick tour around the venue. Looks interesting and we have some of the history explained, should really have had a camera at this point. People start to assemble around the tables, it all looks a bit formal, and very much like a conference. Amanda gets the conference underway with housekeeping, then starts with the pink Converse shoe.
Photograph what I can and make it look as interesting as you can make 16 people, sat round a table, looking at a screen and discussing things.
The discussions are interesting and it appears to evoke a lot of emotion and debate in people. Try to second-guess who is an anthropologist and who is an artist, don’t score many points, but the line between the two is very blurred.
Over the next day and a bit, people present their items and discussion flows. Some of the presentations remind me of other work that I’ve seen.
Others engage the thought process.
I found myself thinking about Martin Parr and Nick Waplington when Amanda presented her work, with issues that arise around social documentary. e.g. Salgado’s monumental documentary project Workers raises questions for me. Beautifully printed black and white images, with rich deep blacks that appear to shine, images that are so perfectly framed, cropped and presented, raising documentary photography to the platform of art. But where’s the connection between the observer and the observed – the workers in the mines of Brazil become nothing more than compositional elements? Is it a naive perspective on documentary, to think perhaps it has the power to motivate people into action? Or does the very nature of choosing to record a subject immediately give it a standpoint or perspective?
Try and take a few Parr like images where I can, but most of the time is pretty standard fare. Keep shooting anyway as that’s what I’m here to do. Feel like an outside observer at this point, very conscious of the camera when I’m shooting.
Liesbeth and Jos and also Bryony’s presentations, remind me of ‘Diverse Memories’, a lecture given by one of the Fine art tutors when I was at University, who created fictitious realities, histories and pasts using objects from a museum. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we accept or question what we see, if we perceive it to be real or truthful, or whether we accept its standpoint or implied meaning.
Daniel’s work raises a smile.
The debate continues until we go for our walk.
Take some black & white photographs so that I can push the film, as it’s pretty dark, save for a few torches and the flash on the camera. Not sure how documentary this all was, but the randomness and the hit-and-hope nature might make for some interesting results.
Take some photographs of the performance, but am glad to go back down the hill as it felt like a time not to be taking photographs. This happens a lot in my line of work, photographing the great and good at launches and other functions. We call them ‘nodding duck’ photos. Photographic theory may have come a long way, but people still want the grip and grin shots or the line-ups.
The debate continues the next day. I shoot more photographs.
We enter the hall to look at an instant response to the debate (by Mary)
Take more photographs.
Then there is a division into three groups.
One group disappears up the hill, one locks itself in a room, and I follow the other on a walk into Hebden Bridge and a visit to the pub.
For the next day or so I follow this group: Daniel, Rosalind, Anna, Soumhya and Lesley and document their progress. This proves to have been a lucky break, as there are many opportunities to take images and make sure that Amanda has something for where ever the images are going to end up.
Not sure what the process was that this group went through, or if it had anything to do with Art or Anthropology, but it was interesting to observe.
Eventually the group came up with the ‘Threeing Workshop’. Two central participants were given written questions by the other three, to which they responded by having a kind of dialogue. At the end of the sessions the questions were read back in random order
After the event, revisiting the transcripts and then the photographs, reminded me of the process of re-reading the questions at the end of the Threeing workshop. What struck me about documenting this photographically, and reading the transcripts, was that as far as possible I had simply recorded the event concentrating on light and composition. Without the transcripts and probably the sound piece and peoples notes, the photographs don’t reveal anything of the debate.
What I got from this experience was the feeling that people were doing similar things but their approaches were different. I suppose I started off with a preconceived idea about anthropology, that it is an academic subject, a bit stuffy, with time spent lecturing, researching and writing papers and reports. This was easily dismissed, as there were no clear boundaries between some of the participants’ work. The research and methodology of the anthropologists could open new possibilities to the artists, as the variety and diversity of the ways in which artists represent subjects to an audience, could give the anthropologist new outlets for their research.
