This week: ASU School of Art JEDI lecture series will host Sarah Lewis this Thursday February 18 at 4PM (Arizona Time) 6PM Eastern Time.

John Anne and I are all crazy busy right now– like so many of you. But we also realize how important it is to keep these connections and conversations going as we approach the 1 year– geez–one year anniversary of, it doesn’t even really have a name or an exact date–but that time during March of 2020 when our lives changed.  We are all in some ways waiting for things to get back to something, but I think everyone knows there is no going back so the conversations have gradually been shifting towards addressing more long term issues that will continue beyond the pandemic. As John, Anne, Becky and I negotiate launching the 2020 All Star Cards Kickstarter campaign, I am aware of how time has moved forward and how it hasn’t. We are also realizing that the Class of 2021 is also facing a compromised and different spring semester of their senior year– their whole final year of college or even for some more than half their graduate school experience, is radically different from what they expected. So first, we are thinking about that, about the difference between the emergency situation for last spring, and the much more long term adjustments and changes that we are all facing now–and yet, and still, I for one find it both difficult and inevitable to try to plan for something a bit more normal.

I wanted to blog here to highlight the upcoming Kickstarter launch for the cards, to get people ready for our idea for the Class of 2021, and to highlight some of the recent and upcoming FotoFika sessions as well as highlight some other related conversations.

Two weeks ago FotoFika hosted Annu Palakunnathu Matthew and Max Kandhola in discussion about expanding the canon and really examining what we need to consider as we make our classrooms and our field inclusive of all experiences and perspectives, particularly in relation to ethnicity and race. A discussion which barely begins to scratch the surface and something that is not easy, especially for those of us who have made our way, who have established a way of being in the world, who stand in front of a classroom and get authority from our educations and tenure– This conversation that they graciously agreed to help us start by bringing us into their experiences and lessons  started by asking people to examine and be willing to reinvent–must continue.  And we must be willing to constantly examine what we think we know, from methods of teaching, to the set of slides we show, to how hard we work to correctly pronounce unfamiliar names to how we gain our authority. It is not easy. And some of us will have to give up power so that we can fairly share it.  Opening up places to talk about it and being willing to question what we think we know is essential. And not easy. Much more to come on this topic.

This week we will take a slight, but related turn and discuss mental health in the classroom, in academia and in art. Like all college educators, we have students at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives during a particularly difficult moment in history and this has exponentially increased the stakes for our behavior in the class room and our responsiveness. As we all know the art classroom is not like a science classroom. Tangents are at the core of the experience and fluid boundaries are often the point. Subject matter weaves itself in and out of our personal lives and our work. Many of us take pride in nurturing openness and expression of the inarticulable, dark and painful.  Its not all Covid related– but somehow it for me at least seems overwhelmingly intense– and I am someone who thrives on intensity. How do we talk about this? How do we take care of our students–what are the resources for the students? What are limits of our responsibilities? And how do we pay attention to our own mental health? This Wednesday we welcome Marianna Chiokan as we begin to address these questions and more on FotoFika.

We really hope to see you this Wednesday  at 4PM (EST) and stay tuned for our All Star Cards Kickstarter Launch!

Betsy

Online, Hybrid and Traditional all have their challenges and advantages and I am hopeful that once Covid no longer dictates our teaching we will emerge with more ways to teach than ever before. And while FotoFika began as a place s is help us develop coping strategies, we are hopeful that it can become a place where we all continue to grow as educators, students and artists.

So all are invited to come and share your experiences from the last year, to talk about different strategies and resources and ways of approaching darkroom in the age of Covid or if you wish just come and listen. We will share resources and assignments, we will build on ideas and talk about ways to approach this coming semester and beyond.

Here is a short list of possible launch points for the 2 hour session.

• What is essential in a darkroom class?
• How do you cover what you deem to be essential in a darkroom class?
• The challenges of teaching darkroom without a common meeting area.
• Different strategies for remote teaching? For socially distanced teaching? For hybrid?
• Alt processes? At home processes?
• Approaches to using PhotoShop for black and white post-production.
• Specific tools?
• Discussion about object-ness and engaging physically and over distance.

Any other ideas or strategies are welcome. See you on Wednesday January 6.

Now I am working with my online ASU students through Zoom and through asynchronous Slack discussions and my in person Emerson students who are socially distanced, masked and unable to get up from their seats.  I am trying so hard to make the most of the compromised space and time–trying as hard as possible to give them an un-compromised experience, I realize that perhaps running critiques– really at the heart of the process– during a crisis may require a bit more than shooting from the hip. This is part of why we’ve decided to dedicate several sessions to critique because its not just shooting from the hip and there is no magic bullet or formula for critiques. So I was grateful to listen to Terry (mostly listen) as he talked about his career of thinking and writing about critique and criticizing photographs. 

One of the main take-aways that I got from the talk wasn’t what I thought–some kind of formula for critique– but rather a general sense of how my ego shouldn’t be the center of the discussion. Like everyone I have better days and worse days, sometimes I’m really entertaining, some days I give great words of wisdom and advice (although probably fewer than I think), the best are when I am able to facilitate a great discussion where I hardly say anything gently tipping the discussion towards one great insight by a student to another and other days, the worst, I feel I’ve thrown a wet blanket over the entire class and leave fearing some of them will hate photography and art for the rest of their lives.

Right now what I know is that I have to put more effort in during crisis, more effort to hear them and understand them from through Zoom, or in their writing or from behind the mask. I found so many ideas in Terry’s talk about how I might continue to work towards this– Most of what he said I’ve always known. But sometimes after 25 years of teaching its important to re-calibrate.

Here are my notes from Terry’s talk including my thoughts mixed with his–


Making better pictures is a limited goal.
Instead consider:
improve social discourse
make better citizens
learn to describe and interpret
encourage thought and engagement

Silence (from the artist and the professor?) 
Give up power
Interactive
Slow down
Sit with discomfort
Step away from Judgement
Avoid (forbid?) the word “like”
Guide towards more thoughtful
Make them independent
More responsibility on the students
Giving up power
Silence
Discomfort is okay

Discourage discussion of intent on the part of the artist
Critique as a Noun vs a Verb
Critique vs. Criticism

Maybe they/you/we don’t need to criticize everything

Good crying–open emotional raw safe to express, overwhelmed, intense
Bad crying–humiliated, scared, overwhelmed, intense

Practical:
Use their names
Ask them questions
What do they see? what do they feel? What have they heard?

Silence, Discomfort, 
Check your ego. 

https://vimeo.com/161259012?fbclid=IwAR3tgZ3ykRhKLzT01ICCmYd-OPs_r8YvX-wuVOHJObfC3EeYMuuBUzRyx0k

The second thing was well, the semester itself. Teaching in person small classes spaced out with no darkroom time, no close time and a mid-level asynchronous class with 30 students known by name only– I began to get frustrated by the lack of deep engagement. No one it seemed could say anything even slightly critical or negative about each others work. So when I do its sounds like I’m just out of it or adhering to old ideas.

And then a former student sent me this Tik/Tok by Ghost Honey–which is funny and was funny until I realized that as much as old school art school critiques drove me crazy– the only thing that still happens is that people say “I like the colors”–

https://twitter.com/tylergaca/status/1313308793237721088?lang=en

And then someone posted Terry Barretts tips for running a critique and that launched a discussion on the Photography Professors page that made me realize that I do not use silence well, at all. And I wondered what I could do to get better at this thing I’ve been supposedly good at for the past 20 years. 

And well, I have a lot more to say but its Wednesday and FotoFika day and I am looking forward to hearing what others are thinking as well.

Looking forward to beginning to dig more deeply into this issue later today.

Betsy 

More to the point of this blog post are other things that happened this week:

This week on FotoFika we hosted Edgar Cardenas who spoke practically about his class at Michigan State where students have taken equipment home and made pinhole 4×5 cameras, developed in specialized little tanks and scanned the images. The class meets weekly on Zoom where they have instant help as they go through the process of using these cameras. Yet another solution to how we can teach in the time of Covid (and beyond really). Edgar also spoke poetically, showing some of his work particularly Los Americanx, portraits of Detroiters that can only really be seen by shining a light on the print. And he spoke conceptually about ideas of sustainability and the need for artists and scientists to work together not just in name but to really engage and consider how different ways of thinking, and knowing, are essential as we deal with Covid and climate change. Artists have an ability to show different paths to problem solving and to understanding. He emphasized how divergent, pluralistic and imaginative thinking (and acting) is the only way we are going to fight the pandemic, climate crisis and growing authoritarianism (and white supremacy, the patriarchy and xenophobia.  Not to be a drama queen. But…) Thanks to Edgar for giving us an hour of his time and covering so many important ideas.

On Wednesday I watched an excellent panel discussion that included  Sama Alshaibi and Zora Murff joining others to discuss the power and the ethics of representation, sponsored by The Visual Identities Art and Design Research Centre.  You can watch it here. You can also get information about Session 2 which is coming up October 29th. 

The MassArt Lecture series featured Nadia Sablin. This year they are boasting nearly double the usual number of artists in this excellent lecture series. It continues with Christine Osinski this Wednesday. 

For those of you who don’t already know SPE is hosting weekly virtual regional conferences. This weekend is the south central. Its very affordable and they have several weekends of important and meaningful programming.

And just sayin’ The ASU online BFA will be hosting a lecture series beginning this month. I’ll post details here next week.

Welcome to October 2020!

How are you teaching: Totally online? synch, asynch, hybrid, flex plan, students take home equipment, meeting outside– how is everyone coping with the first few weeks. I’d love to know (and once I figure it out this will be a poll instead of a post)– What its called and how it is working for you and the students?

At Emerson I’m teaching what we call a “Flex” plan. Camilo said it was 50% of 50%, which if I remember my math right its 25%– I thought they meant instruction–but they meant people in the buildings. And it is weirdly lonely and quiet in the buildings.

What kinds of discoveries are you making about teaching, about yourself, about your students?

I realized that I read faces–not eyes– I listen to voices and they are muffled and silenced by the configuration of the class. Under the best of circumstances, I find teaching tech stuff very awkward and even with equipment I’ve used for decades (literally this happened last week) I fumble in front of the class–Normally I make it part of the schtick–but now its a very  small class where I can’t see their expressions I am filled with self-doubt. They are here for such a brief time during the week, the time is precious and I don’t want to waste it. But I can’t tell how they feel. Do they think I’m funny? Or a huge dork? Are they bored? or worse…–Maybe they are just not paying attention–zoned out behind that mask. Its like Zoom but in person, and with masks–so well its like a truncated version of Zoom. —

I’m not entirely sure what to do, but I would love to hear how others are experiencing this.

And in the totally online arena: a class I’ve been teaching for years is fine but I have a respect issue from an older guy– emails that he would never send to a male (maybe I’m wrong but…)– (“This class just keeps getting better and better” after watching a feedback session from another semester).  How can you both establish some kind of rapport, keep up with everything and at the same time keep authority?  Seems like it should be easier from a distance, but for me it sometimes seems harder.

That said I have one older guy online student who is fantastic. And he just got a picture included in David Campany’s ICP show (and no Anne did not pull strings).

I look forward to tomorrow’s FotoFika to discuss these matters. And watch for a poll here from me soon.

Out of  respect for the continuing momentum behind BLM political movement over the past month we have pulled back on FotoFika both in promoting the All Star Cards as well as the planned workshops.

Today’s workshop was to focus on workers rights and unionization and it was the title Solidarity that made us reconsider the subject in the midst of the protests. We strongly believe that this movement is something that is vitally important and that it was the time for us to stand back a bit. This is not to say that the urgency of planning and adapting to remote, hybrid and online teaching is not an essential and continuing task. So while we will not be having the planned FotoFika Workshop today. We are continuing to work on the All Star Cards and I would like to offer smaller, more informal 2 hour working sessions starting July 15 to those who wish to sign up–please fill out this Google form if you wish to participate in any working sessions or panel discussions.

NCAC Calls on Zoom to Defend Educators from Chinese Censorship

Please plan for July 1 at 1PM to discuss issues of workers rights issues, big tech and the broader political implications for online teaching, art, photography and higher ed.

Workshops will take place on Wednesdays but unlike the regular FotoFika slot, we will meet from 2 to 4 (EDT). The dates and general topics are as follows:

Workshops will be participatory and emphasize problem solving and solutions through communal engagement.

June 17  POSTPONED TO JULY 1—Solidarity

The first workshop will address issues of political and social concern for the students and the faculty. Scheduled for the 17th of June which is the anniversary of, John said there was something but all I found was the 119th anniversary of the establishment of the College Board (boo). But there is a lot of other cool stuff that happened on the 17th of June  (check it out here: https://www.onthisday.com/events/june/17).

This workshop will address how we can advocate for our international students, concerns about access to equipment and software for students in a distance, hybrid or socially-distant campus situation, what this means for adjunct, un-tenured and other contingent faculty–as well as tenured faculty and how we might approach this with a shared sense of mission.

July 15– Tools and Concepts

The second workshop will address conceptual concerns,  questions about teaching portraiture in a Covid era, intimacy and distance learning, ways to provide an open and rigorous classroom environment, giving feedback, conducting critiques , using flexible techniques for giving feedback.

August 5 -Syllabus Boot Camp

We will go over assignments and strategies for planning our classes including assignments, readings, sharing lectures, artists visits and sharing resources.

August 19 – On your Mark, Get Set, Go (or Ready, Steady, Go)

Who knows what things will look like by the end of August. Wherever we are we’ll use this workshop to respond and work together to be ready to take on the new and the unknown.