Positionality Program for BA Fine Art Photography 2022-23
Maia Conran, Smriti Mehra, Olga Saavedra
In photography, the examination of the self/other is a key concern of the medium. How do you look at yourself and how do you look at an ‘other’? The lens mediates these two positions. This research project on positionality therefore speaks to the fundamental concern of our practice: how we look at what we see, in a nuanced, considered and compassionate way.
Students understanding of positionality enables them to situate themselves and others with empathy and nuance and therefore increases the agility with which they approach challenges in social and professional situations. It increases confidence, proactivity and resilience individually and collectively. By sharing their narratives they are able to better connect to the narratives of others, this in turn increases connectivity in the course overall.
Our Questions
How can positionality frame contextualization, interpersonal interaction, academic thinking, and articulation of practice?
How can prompts to thinking about positionality be woven into the course at every level, adapting to student development?
How does this understanding transcend lens based practice? How can the impact of our interventions be measured?
Year 1 Workshops – Smriti Mehra
- Positionality Wheels – defining identities in relation to self and environment.
- Columbian Hypnosis Workshop (Theater of the Oppressed) – The self and its relationship to power.
- Rank Awareness (process work) – Interpretation of status through planning a group dinner.
- Point of View exercise – exploring the perspectives of others through point of view.
These workshops are first facilitated with academic and technical staff on the program during our Staff Development day in September before the students come in.
Colombian Hypnosis workshop, Staff Development Day, September 2022
Colombian Hypnosis workshop, Positionality Series with year 2, October 2022
Colombian Hypnosis workshop, Positionality Series with year 2, October 2022
Year 2 workshops – Olga Saavedra
- Social identity and Context
A reflexive exercise to help identify individual positionality and serve as a starting point for reflection on how that affects your creative practice. Exploring from personal experience how social identities such as: race, class, gender, and disability, intersect with our ways of seeing and producing art. Using ‘Social Identity Map’: A Reflexivity Tool for Practicing Explicit Positionality designed by Danielle Jacobson and Nida Mustafa (2019).
- My Own Multiple Identities, Power and Visual Representation
Applying the Social Identity map exercise by focusing on the intersection between positionality, and power dynamics in order to analyse how it influences the ways we think about photography. Reflecting on ‘multiple and intersecting social identities and social locations (including privilege or oppression) and how it affects how we see and understand images (Collins & Arthur, 2010).
- Positionality and Contextualising Your Practice
Reflecting on the influence of positionality in practice. Students are encouraged to think about how their background affects their research topics. Identifying which aspects of social identity have the most influence on their art and considering the changing nature of positionality within different stages of work.
Year Meeting Interventions – Smriti Mehra
- Year 2 Site and Contextualization
reading artworks in the context of the Bargehouse Gallery space.
- Year 3 Positionality
moving from student to professional.
- Across Years: Studio Intervention – Carnival in Rio
negotiating and achieving collective resonance.
Positionality Seminar Series
• Belonging – Reflecting on the role of personal objects to evoke memories, stories, and reflections of the self.
• Owning Positionality – Exploring Trinh T. Minh-Ha’s insights about speaking nearby and in relation to the work of Candice Breitz artwork: Love Story 2016, a seven-channel video installation.
• Discussion of an Unknown Object – Discussion on unknown objects – How we interact with and understand them.
• The Object Lesson – Based on a discussion of the Object Lesson a picture book by Edward Gorey, to explore how the self-is being negotiated when creating collaboratively.
Quotes from the Year 1 USS
- I really like how open and accepting everyone is including students and staff. I feel very safe at college. I also like that I can be vulnerable around everyone during sessions and express myself the way I am.
- I liked the community aspect at the start in the studios doing workshops together.
Observations on the Second Year
- There was a notable change in the second year’s approach to situating their practice. Greater confidence around their individual positionality and how it is a part of their practice.
- Several second year students specifically asked for more positionality seminars.
- The External Examiner commented on the broadening of contextualization within the course across years two and three.
Further considerations
- There is a challenge in setting the level of the workshops and seminars to be appropriately intellectually challenging.
- Where best to situate interventions in terms of the student timetable.
- How to embed the learning within units and move away from the sessions being considered additional.
- That this is additional for staff to deliver which presents a challenge for workloads and budgets.