Studio 5: New Frontiers

Studio brief

How and why can you produce a translation of reality (or an idea) into a photograph and what is the thinking behind it? The studio raises questions about the representational and non-representational in photographic media, inviting students to explore issues, ideas, senses, stories, rumours, myths, facts, fictions, dreams or other concerns that matter to them and relate to the theme through approaches that test the possibilities and limits of photographic media today, from analogue traditions through digital and post-digital to any combination of cross-media practices or actions.

The studio will support students' experimentation and guide them through exploration of these questions. It will help to frame the production of their projects and research through an intense and stimulating programme aimed to provide conceptual grounding together with practical skills. This will lead to an understanding of how to position their practice within existing contextual frameworks and how to produce works to the highest professional and museum standard. We will work from concept development to completion of the project’s outputs (including artworks, exhibitions, publications, events and digital platforms) while offering an insight into the development of professional practice after graduation.

Over the two “studio” days each week, the programme will use a range of methodologies that will include:

• practice, research, lectures and seminars (research and contextualisation)
• professional practice talks
• exhibition production workshops (including a studio group art project)
• a symposium (Fathom the Four Corners Gallery Residency Artists Day)
• online marketing and networking sessions
• exhibition visits (including Four Corners Gallery in Bethnal Green, the Print Room at the V&A Museum, Burden of Proof: The Construction of Visual Evidence exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, Dusseldorf Photography: Bernd & Hill Becher and Beyond exhibition at Ben Brown Fine Arts Gallery), where students will meet curators and gallerists and discuss the work being shown
• documentary viewing sessions (key documentaries related to the studio theme)
• show and tell sessions (how to read a photograph, how to talk about a photograph, how to write about a photograph)
• read and discuss sessions (group discussions of key texts from our critical reading list)
• individual tutorials with photography section lecturers
• talks by visiting artists and industry professionals
• group crits

The Studio’s group art project for this year’s Photomonth Festival in November relates directly to the studio theme. The exhibition offers an opportunity to explore the studio theme as a group and to extend your professional practice development skills.
 

Temitope Akinde
Ryan Allen
Fanny Boucharin
Zanele Hurworth
Enrica Federica Italiano
Emilia Joye
Eimante Kutkaite
Robert Lee-Peace
Joshua Melvin-Gibbons
Beatrice Moltani
Camilla Morelli
Basma Musaad
Alsy Mutshipayi
Davide Olmeo
Suzsanna Palmai
Ali Raza
Sam Russell
Megan Sharp
Jary Villanueva
Joanna Walecka
Ava Yusuf
Thalita Zanin Vaz de Lascio