Online resource for VCE Students Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Presented by Melbourne Festival and Centre for Contemporary Photography Centre for Contemporary Photography 12 October—10 November 2013 Introduction Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald For more than 40 years, Wendy Ewald has been practising as an artist and teacher. Her photographic practice centres on the students with which she works. Working collaboratively with children, women and families, Ewald produces images that question identity and cultural difference. By teaching children and others how to use a camera she leads them on an enquiry based process using the techniques of visual literacy. Her collaborators produce drawings and write about their personal experiences. Over this period, Ewald has worked with children in rural areas in Canada, the USA, Mexico, Colombia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Israel and Palestine, and India. Much of her work identifies the cultural and social differences of her subjects. “It doesn’t interest me to put a frame around somebody’s world… it interests me to help bring pictures out of that world’ Wendy Ewald About this resource This resource has been designed to be used with Visual Arts curriculum and is based on the teaching and learning framework of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. The information can also be used in Secondary VCE Art and Studio Arts including: Art Unit 1&3 Investigating and interpreting Art and Meaning. Unit 2 Art & Cultural expression. Unit 4 Discussing and Debating Art. Analytical Frameworks. Studio Arts Unit 1 Inspiration and techniques. Unit 2 Design exploration and concepts. Unit 3 Studio production and professional art practices. Unit 4 Study production and art industry concepts. 2 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Cover image: Pete Mauney Biography Wendy Ewald Wendy Ewald is a conceptual artist and educator who has for 40 years collaborated in art projects with children, families, women, and teachers worldwide. Beginning as documentary investigations of places and communities, Ewald’s projects probe questions of identity and cultural differences. In her work with children Wendy Ewald encourages them to use cameras to record themselves, their families, and their communities, and to articulate their fantasies and dreams. Ewald herself often makes photographs within the communities she works with, and has the children mark or write on her negatives, thereby challenging the concept of who actually makes an image, who is the photographer and who the subject, who the observer and who the observed. In her introduction to Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald, the artist writes, “I began to experiment with ways of sharing control over the image making”. In blurring the distinction of individual authorship and throwing into doubt the artist’s intentions, power, and identity, Ewald creates opportunities to look at the meaning and use of photographic images in our lives with fresh perceptions. Wendy Ewald was born in Detroit, Michigan, graduated from Phillips Academy in 1969 and attended Antioch College in the early 1970s, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied photography. She embarked on a career teaching photography to children and young people internationally. In 1969 and 1970, she taught photography to indigenous children in Canada. Between 1976–1980 she taught photography and film-making to students in Whitesburg, Kentucky. In 1982, she travelled to Ráquira, Colombia on a Fulbright fellowship working with children and community groups; spending a further two years in Gujarat, India. In recent years Ewald has produced a number of conceptual installations—for example, in Margate, England and in Amherst, Massachusetts—making use of large scale photographic banners. 3 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Image: Sarah Walker Biography Ewald was one of the founders of the Half Moon Photography Workshop in the East End of London; and in 1989 she created the ‘Literacy through Photography’ programmes in Houston, Texas, and Durham, North Carolina. She is currently Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies at Duke University, visiting artist at Amherst College and director of the international Literacy through Photography program and artist in residence at the Duke University Centre for International Studies. In 2011, Ewald coordinated a project in Israel. She gave cameras to owners of stalls and stores at the Mahane Yehuda marketplace in Jerusalem, to Arab women and gypsies in Jerusalem’s Old City, to schoolchildren in Nazareth, residents of Hebron, Negev Bedouin and high-tech employees in Tel Aviv. This was Ewald’s first attempt to document an entire country, and the first use of digital cameras and colour photography in her international projects. Ewald has published widely and has received many honours, including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art & Design. Her work was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial. 4 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald The Collaborative Artist – Portraits Wendy Ewald has developed her unique artistic practice over a period of many years. Ewald had always thought about collaboration in her work. As an older sibling she started photographing her brothers and sisters in imaginary games and performances that she would invent for them. Some of this inspiration is evident in the photographs Ewald has taken of children in her earlier works where they are dressed up in costumes or masks. Ewald combined her passion for photography and working with children. Her first project in 1969 was on a First Nations reservation in remote Canada. Ewald applied for a grant from Polaroid to purchase some cameras, which she gave to children and sent them out to take pictures of where they lived. “They had a raw power that I had yet to see in photographs. Their work led me to wonder if I could consciously merge the subject of a picture and the photographer and create a new picture-making process.” She moved to Kentucky to an isolated, rural district. It was here that Ewald began to look at the conceptual nature of photography. By teaching and living in close proximity to the children she began to experience the events in their lives and encouraged them to reflect on those experiences. Therefore Ewald’s work became anthropological. The photographs she takes are a result of the time she spends with the children and listening to their stories, dreams and fantasies. Ewald will get the children to write their own stories or she records and edits the stories. Often the images depict subjects that the children hope for. Together with the children, Ewald documents the lives of her subjects, their surroundings, communities and, dreams and fantasies. The works are in a sense, portraits. However, contrary to the belief of the time honoured portrait and the contract between the artist portraying a person and the person being portrayed is rethought. The inside view of the subject and outside view of the artist are blended. Ewald has used the genre of portraiture to document and artistically tell the stories of the people in them. Mostly the children come from remote communities or in racially or socially disadvantaged areas including the West Bank, Colombia and India. Ewald provides the children with a voice through their images. 5 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Image: Benedict Michelle, from the series Canada 1969—1974 The Collaborative Artist – Portraits Responding to artworks 1 Discuss the processes Ewald uses to create her portraits. Using the images in the exhibition as examples, discuss how Ewald uses collaboration with her subjects to create the portraits. 2 How does Ewald show the identity of the sitter in her work? What are some of the symbols that are selected by both Ewald and her subject? 3 How does Ewald gain inspiration for her portrait works? How are these ideas then developed throughout the making of the artwork? 1 2 Making artworks Create a digital portrait with a member of your family. Get your family member to tell you the story of their life. Then make a list of objects, interiors and landscapes that you can photograph. Think about how you would photograph these spaces including the focal point of the image, framing and light. Together choose sentences from the story to place next to the photograph as text, or the text could be typed or written in some area of the photograph. The images could be presented in a photo book or as an exhibition. Interview members of your family. Take a series of portraits of a family member. The portrait can be in an environment that is selected by the family member. You could also plan how the person wants to be photographed, including their clothing and the various poses you can focus on. Get the family member to select two objects of significance for you to photograph. Plan how you will take these photos as you did for the portraits. Then plan to present these images in a triptych or in pairs by selecting a portrait image and the objects. Document the development of the work and the selection of the images in your visual diary. 6 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Cultural Belief & Identity Ewald’s photographs have an underlying theme of social and cultural identity. By working with the children and hearing their stories, her knowledge of the culture grows. One of her primary goals is to use visual imagery that can be easily analysed by the viewer so they can learn more about the culture and social identity of the subject. The viewer can bring multiple meanings and interpretations to the work. Ewald investigates the social realities of individual people and provides the viewer with a convincing reminder of the existence of a wide range of cultures in society, one that is not only Anglo Saxon and white. In earlier works from India (1989—1990), Mexico (1991), Colombia (1982—1985) and South Africa (1992) the images that the children have shot display aspects of everyday life in these countries and provide the viewer with an insight into these cultures through festivals and often artefacts that are significant in the culture. In these series of images Ewald places some of her own images so that her voice becomes one amongst many of that culture. In her more recent portraits of Israeli youths, textiles relevant to the culture and area where the subjects live frame the faces of her sitters. The children who have consulted on the portrait with Ewald have made these choices. Ewald worked with young people from many different areas and walks of life for this series, including girls from a military preparation course for women. 7 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Image: Salvador Gómez Jiménez A jaguar is eating chicken from the series Mexico 1991 Cultural Belief & Identity “Becoming a ‘ local’ for a project’s duration, Ewald says she tries to effect change even as she’s creating art.” Sonia Harford, The Age critic Ewald not only investigates the cultural identity of her subjects but also highlights issues of race. Black Self/White Self (1994—1997) was made in Durham, North Carolina. Ewald was teaching in several schools in the area that had been merged from two school systems that had been racially segregated. Ewald asked each student to write about himself or herself; and then she asked them to write another text picturing themself as a member of the other race. Ewald took portraits of the children posing as both their ‘black self’ and their ‘white self’ and then she gave the students the negatives of both their portraits to alter. Through this process Ewald is challenging the stereotypes of race and also encouraging the students to investigate their sense of identity by working with and interviewing another person. She is asking the viewer to critically reflect on the stereotypes that the portraits both imply and demonstrate. The portraits often carry a political message. By using text on the image the children are making a statement about how they want others to see them. They also dress and pose as themselves and members of another race—they make these choices as well as the text. The portraits are similar to ethnographic portraits that were taken of marginalised cultures such as Indigenous people in the 1700s. By placing the text on the image, the subject of the portrait is encouraging the viewer to see them as more than just an ‘object’. Responding to artworks 1 Analyse the photographs in one of the series from Mexico, Colombia, India or South Africa. What symbols of the culture can you see in the works? What specific techniques has Ewald used to show those differences? What do you think the story is behind the work? 2 Compare Ewald’s earlier work with her more current work. What are the main differences in the way the artist and children have created the portraits? Consider the use of subject matter, materials and techniques. 3 Look at the images and see if you can find any by Ewald amongst the series. How are these works different from the works by the children? Consider the way Ewald has composed the photographs and the cultural symbols that have been used. 4 Analyse one of the images from Black Self/White Self. What ideas have the students expressed in the work? How do those ideas relate to the way in which the photograph has been taken? Are there any significant symbols or techniques that the artist has used? Making artworks With a partner in your class, create two portraits. The first portrait will be a self-portrait. Brainstorm how you will photograph yourself. You may choose to be photographed in a particular environment or with certain objects. You must consider how you want to be portrayed to others. Discuss this with your partner. The second portrait will be of your partner. Get that person to tell you about themselves and brainstorm some ideas. Together you will take a series of images and select the two that best represent you and the other person. You might want to write on the images or provide text, like in the work Wendy Ewald has done with children and women. 8 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Art Issues Wendy Ewald’s photographs can bring forth discussions surrounding several broad themes and issues. The way in which she communicates these ideas and issues is often by the use of subject matter of the works, her techniques and the practice of collaboration. Her work makes us consider what the role of art can play in society. Perhaps the most prominent issue is the contemporary and conceptual artistic practice of collaboration that Ewald has developed. It brings into question, through the artist working with children, who is the artist? You could discuss that, in a sense, Ewald is like a director, working with the children to generate the works. She often takes the children’s stories and creates the works based on this framework or she directs the children to take their own photographs in relation to the stories that they have told her. The series Canada (2008—2012) using Facebook was part of a larger project that Ewald worked on with Eric Gottesman and the Innu people of Labrador in remote central Canada. Ewald returned to the community and showed her photographs from 1969 and original archival film footage, shot by anthropologists in the early 1900s. She and Gottesman documented the stories and photographed the people. They also worked with high school students in the area to document their own lives. Then the people and artists collaboratively selected the images to display in an exhibition and on a Facebook page. This work covers several artforms; traditional exhibition, installations and the online space. It also crosses the boundaries of artistic, anthropological and educational practice. Ewald’s artistic practice is a form of appropriation, which is another art issue. Appropriation is a term used to describe how the artist often takes the work of another artist and reproduces that work in a different context to express new ideas. By often replicating similar projects over different periods of time, Ewald has appropriated images to comment on the cultural identity of people. Often working collaboratively with the children and getting 9 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Image: Emma lives in the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi in Israel near the Lebanon border (frame from a ketubah (jewish marriage contract) made by nurit) Art Issues them to write on her images creates new meanings for the portraits which have evolved throughout the period of time that Ewald has worked with them. It also should be considered, where Ewald is not the original creator of the work, has she the right to display the images in a way that might not have been the original intention of the child who created the work? How has she interpreted the original meanings and intention of the child in the photographs? The formats of the works, which break the definition of traditional portraits, also bring to light another issue, which can be debated. The portraits are sometimes displayed in installations and on large banners in public spaces. Therefore, what is the definition of a portrait? The relationship between Ewald as the artist and the children as the subjects is blurred. The intention of the artist is different from the traditional purpose of a portrait. In the Canada (2008—2012) series with the Innu people, both the subjects and the artist collaborated on the works throughout the project, with video, photography, installation and exhibition. 1 2 3 Responding to artworks Research the Canada (2008—2012) series or other projects by Ewald such as the Margate Project. Discuss the issues that arise from making the works such as the role of the artist and the subject, the use of art forms, depiction of subject matter and the display and exhibition of artworks. Compare the Canada (2008—2012) series with Wendy Ewald’s first project in the same area in Canada in 1969. What are the different issues created by these works from different periods of time? Consider the use of materials, art forms and the way that the artist has worked collaboratively with her subjects. What issues of race and cultural identity are expressed in Wendy Ewald’s works? How has the artist used the photographic and video medium to express these ideas? What processes has she used with this medium? Making artworks Research some old family photos, videos or some archival footage and photos of your school or local area. Collect the photographs and show them to older members of your family, community and school. Interview the people and ask them questions about what they remember about their lives and the area in which they grew up. You can use the photographs as a starting point for related questions to the photos. Photograph the people or create a video of them. You can also create a series of photographs of yourself and your experiences of the same area, family or school. Scan the older photographs and videos and exhibit them in an installation with your current video and photographs. You could use some of the processes that Wendy Ewald has used in her works such as writing on photographs, printing them on large banners or setting up a Facebook page. 10 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Process and Practice Ewald has always used contemporary methods and concepts to develop her body of work. Her photographic techniques draw on the skills that she learned at high school. Originally Ewald used a large-format Polaroid camera that simultaneously produced a negative and a print. In Black Self/White Self (1994—1997), she encouraged the children to look at the positive prints that were produced so they could suggest changes. She then took the ideas transferred from the written documents by the children and encouraged them to think about the concept of ‘black and white’ in terms of race and the use of a positive and negative print in photography. Therefore the aesthetics of the photographic process and print are combined with the concepts behind the image. The children also worked on the emulsion of the image by scratching into the negatives so the meanings become physical as well as conceptual. In generating a design process, Ewald uses her subjects, and their stories as her inspiration. She collaboratively works with them to generate ideas based on their stories and then selects statements from their stories to place on the portraits. The placement of the text is often an aesthetic consideration and the subjects consider the placement of the text in relation to the ideas that are conveyed in their portrait. Aesthetics play an important role in the expression of themes in Ewald’s work. In teaching children about photography she places emphasis on the composition and framing of images and how these best tell a story. In Black Self/White Self the strong contrasts of black and white reinforce the messages. Often the attention to photographic conventions such as the point of focus and lighting qualities in the images enhance the message. Images such as Black Self/ White Self have been developed in later projects as digital prints on a larger scale. Ewald has moved into working with digital photography, a medium that allows her to enlarge her images and develop different ways of applying text on to the images. The printing of the framed textile borders in the Israel (2010—2012) works show how digital processes have enabled the images to be combined, a process that would be difficult using conventional analogue photography. The style of Ewald’s works exists on a border between artistic practice and ethnography. Ewald’s work mirrors the practice used by ethnographers in documenting their subjects through interviews and photographs to learn more about the race and culture of the people. The images contrast with portraits taken by researchers of Indigenous people. Ewald’s images 11 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Image: White Self - Gregory Blake; from the project North Carolina Black Self/White Self 1994—1997 Process and Practice of children in Kentucky are similar to those taken by Walker Evans under the National Farm Administration project in the 1930s. Evans documented the people of this area for the Federal Government. His photographs were a series of portraits that documented the lives of the people in this area. 1 2 3 Responding to artworks Describe the use of design elements and principles in Ewald’s work. How does the use of these elements contribute to the meanings and messages of the works? Compare the use of materials and techniques in the work of Wendy Ewald with those used by Walker Evans. Discuss how the works reflect the period of time in which the artists were working. How do you think Ewald’s work is different from anthropology or ethnography? Making artworks Using some existing images taken by family members or important members of your community create some new photographs based on these images. You will need to study the works of these people carefully and observe the use of design elements, design principles and photographic conventions. You can rephotograph the person in a similar pose or even scan in the image and work on it using a photo-editing program. Find some written statements about the people and experiment using text over the works. 12 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald The Role of the Gallery – Exhibition and Display Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald is an exhibition that has been commissioned for the Melbourne Festival. Louise Neri, Creative Associate for the Visual Arts, Melbourne Festival, approached CCP about exhibiting Wendy Ewald’s work. New York resident, Louise Neri has worked with Ewald on previous exhibitions and publications. Over many months of conversations between Neri and Ewald on Skype from New York and Karra Rees and Naomi Cass from CCP, the exhibition has been developed. The concept is to present an in-depth selection of Ewald’s work to be presented across all CCP galleries. The exhibition has been co-curated by Louise Neri, Karra Rees and Naomi Cass. Extensive Skype conversations and emails have taken place over a nine-month period, in which every aspect of the exhibition has been discussed. Ideally these discussions take place in the same room and with the actual work present, rather than using digital images and over Skype. When working with international artists, this is often not possible; and digital technology makes curating at a distance more manageable. However, there are always surprises when one unpacks the works that have been shipped from abroad. For example, CCP curators selected many of the images without seeing or understanding the framing, which has quite a strong effect on the final installation. Dark timber frames give a very different experience of the work than light toned timber frames. In the first instance, curators wish to present the work in the best possible circumstances, secondly that the exhibition be informative, extensive and engaging. We chose to present a large range of work to demonstrate the breadth of Ewald’s practice. Each series tells a unique story. The curators have endeavoured to present sufficient work to illuminate Ewald’s practice and yet for the gallery to not be overcrowded ensuring that the viewing experience is rewarding. Initially, CCP curators made calculations about the volume of space required for each series and scoped these on a plan of the gallery. As prompts for planning the installation, photographs and publications of previous exhibitions were consulted. This was discussed with Ewald and Neri over email and Skype. Prior to receiving the crates in which the work was shipped from New York, the gallery walls were patched and painted, either white or pale blue. Signage was also designed and ordered. When the work arrived it was photographed (documented) in the crates then carefully unpacked and condition reported by a professional conservator and CCP staff. Protective materials were placed on the gallery floor (felt covered timber blocks) and the framed work was laid out standing on these blocks, rather than the floor. These large unframed prints that 13 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Installation of the exhibition at CCP. Image: Lauren Dunn The Role of the Gallery – Exhibition and Display have travelled rolled up in tubes are carefully unfurled and placed on clean tissue on tables to ‘relax’ with small conservation weights on each corner. For many of the series, CCP used the same configurations as previous exhibitions, where the artist was present for installation. In some instances, in response to CCP conditions, the works have been installed differently. As all works have D-rings on the back, the install team calculated the exact spot for all screws, which are then placed in the wall for an entire series before any work was hung. Once adjustments are made, the lights are arranged to best illuminate the images and the work is carefully dusted prior to the installation of signage. For the documentaries presented as video files in Gallery 4, the walls are painted dark grey to create a ‘black box’ in which the moving image is best viewed. A screen is ‘cut out’ in white paint. Artists have different approaches to wall labels and information panels. CCP has a particular style, but this is undertaken in consultation with the artist. As a ‘contemporary art space’, and not a museum, CCP exhibitions tend to have fewer explanatory panels, however explanatory texts are critical to the presentation of Wendy Ewald’s work. For this exhibition we have ‘levels’ of labels, presented in corresponding sizes: 1 2 3 Overall exhibition introduction labels that are large. Series’ titles and small introductions that are medium in size. Individual works (accompanied by the name of the child who took the photo, the title of the work, and in many cases the child/photographer’s comments about the photograph) are on small labels. There is no exhibition catalogue as the gallery does not have the funds to develop one. They have provided a research desk in the gallery with catalogues from previous exhibitions by Ewald. The gallery has also organised a floor talk by the artist. She will discuss her work with the director of the gallery 14 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Installation of the exhibition at CCP. Image: Lauren Dunn The Role of the Gallery – Exhibition and Display Responding to artworks 1 Describe the arrangement of the Ewald exhibition. How are works grouped? Are there themes? Describe and analyse one of the rooms of the exhibition. Describe how the works are arranged, as the curator has discussed, ‘to engage the viewer’? 2 On reading the information about the planning of the exhibition, analyse the use of signage. What information is provided about the exhibition? How does it relate to the works presented? 3 Describe the labelling of works in the exhibition. Select a particular series of works. What does the labelling explain about the images? Does it discuss the theme? Describe the artworks? If the labels are in three sizes, what is the importance of the hierarchy of information? Describe what is on a large, medium and small label, in relation to the works on display. 1 2 Making artworks With one of the activities in this resource, organise an exhibition of the works. You could consider the way Ewald has worked with communities to display a body of work. The exhibition could include video, installation work, documentation interviews in written form or audio and photographs. Consider how works will be framed or displayed and the selection of works. This could all be documented in a visual diary by each student. Plan an online exhibition of works from one of the activities. You could use the same ideas and documentation as Activity 1 but display and document the works in an online forum or blog. Consider how members of the group you are working with can place reflections in a blog or online forum. Viewers could also contribute to the exhibition with online reflections. 15 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald References Ewald, W., Hyde, K. & Lord, L. (2012). ‘Literacy & Justice Through Photography; A classroom guide’. Teachers College Press, New York. Ewald, W. & Cook, B. (2009) ‘Who am I in this Picture? Amherst College Portraits’ The trustees of Amerst College, Massachusetts Ewald, W. & Neri, L. (2006) ‘Towards a Promised Land’ Artangel, London Hyde, K. (2005). ‘Portraits and collaborations: a reflection on the work of Wendy Ewald’. Visual Studies, Vol. 20 (2). Ewald, W. & Lightfoot, A. (2001). ‘I Wanna Take Me a Picture; Teaching Photography and Writing to Children’. Beacon Press, Massachusetts. ‘Making Models’ Exhibition Review. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/seeing-the-world-with-childrens-eyes20131001-2uqmb.html#ixzz2gpqSZTzp Innu Project https://www.facebook.com/groups/57811868232/Labrador%202008 http://vimeo.com/26958103 Israel Project http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/shooting-israel-seeing-jerusalem-through-thelens-of-a-camera-1.403134 Acknowledgements CCP would like to acknowledge and thank Kathryn Hendy-Ekers for her assistance in realising this Education Resource. We also acknowledge Wendy Ewald, Louise Neri and Melissa Bedford for their contributions. CCP acknowledges the Melbourne Festival. Centre for Contemporary Photography 404 George Street, Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065 +613 9417 1549 www.ccp.org.au 16 Education Resource Making Models: The Collaborative Art of Wendy Ewald Gallery hours Wednesday–Friday 11am–6pm Saturday–Sunday 12–5pm
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