Consider visual strategies used by women photo-based artists who use photo tableau (constructed scenes), camouflage, and batik fabrics. You are invited to closely observe, spend time with one photograph, and respond through writing. After the writing session, we will ask volunteers to read and share selections from their writing responses. Through close observation, issues of representation and your own poetic voice will emerge.
The prompts on the workshop writing sheet are greatly influenced by artist methodologies and philosophers who have written about the construction of images. The questions are also influenced by art students, photographers, cultural theorists, meditation breathing practices. The writing prompts offer starting points that help us see images without jumping to quick interpretations. Underlying themes and questions that inspired this worksheet include, How do we listen to an image, how do we see a person in an image without jumping to preconceived notions of who the person is? How do we create a space of pause between observation and interpretation? How can withholding from adjectives create an opportunity to see anew? How can visual strategies used by women photo-based artists from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore unhinge our bodies from dominant ideologies? Can artist strategies show us a way?
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