Joy in the Visual Arts - photography workshops with Daniela Groza

photography workshop — 2.8.2021 15:00

<< JOY IN THE VISUAL ARTS>> is dedicated to people interested in photography, regardless of their level of familiarity with the art. We will focus less on technique and equipment and more on the personal engine that empowers the way we view, capture and represent the world around us. Any device is acceptable, including the telephone.
<< AGAINST CYNICISM>> is the 6th edition of Focus Atelier. Beyond the cynical, handy and passive criticism, we ask what gives us dignity, hope and freedom?
Participation in the workshop is free of charge subject to availability and selection. We encourage participation of non-binary people, women, Roma people, queer people.


ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
The workshop will be a forum in which we will look at joy as a means of resistance. We will explore together the sensation of looking at and photographing flora, our favorite foods, even the sunrise. We will learn to understand and embrace kitsch, we will unlearn to condemn. We will look at joy as a vehicle for revolution.
At the workshop we will examine how the existing, often pessimistic, visual canon shapes our senses. We will discuss works by Francesca Woodman, Richard Avedon, Jo Ann Callis, Roger Ballen, Catherine Opie, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tyler Mitchell, Endia Beale, Hajdu Tamas and Virginia Lupu. We will focus on intersectional activism.
The workshop will involve feedback sessions, roundtables as well as fieldwork field trips.


ABOUT THE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE:
I am a fun, queer & non-binary (she/he) multidisciplinary artist born in Romania. In order to effectively connect to the world and my community, I take it upon myself to manifest joy, as opposed to the monolithic vision of a queer existence filled with sadness ~ our queer lives are varied and beautiful, in addition to the difficult struggle for recognition. I hope to engage workshop participants in a conversation that brings art and its meanings to the joyful table of trust and caring for others.
I am no stranger to the difficulties of life ~ as an immigrant, queer, non-binary, survivor of sexual abuse, I sought healing in my field, but what I needed wasn’t there. According to the canon art matters when measured with a made-up scale of degrees of suffering, joy being the lowest placed ~ much of what we see and admire is joyless. The canon has since time immemorial decided against joy. Apart from a few academic works, there is little material on the existence (or absence) of the concept of happiness in the visual arts.
Vulnerability has become the key element for the way I approach the concept of joy and, by implication, that of anti-cynicism ~ humour, pleasurable action and fun/distraction, play, rejection of norms in favour of innocence.
My art practice is social in purpose and is performed in both the US and Romania. It can be followed on queerjoy.world (digital works), danielagroza.com (analog works), queero.org (an archive website dedicated to the stories of nonbinary, trans and queer women in Romania) and bekindforreal.org.


PERIOD :
📌12 July - 25 July (DEADLINE ❗) // Registration (rolling admission*) HERE >>> https://forms.gle/z3mcn71FdZx8WPuB6
📌2 August - 22 August // Meetings - 3 hours/day, 3 days/week [schedule to be determined later relative to the schedule of the participants].
📌23 August - 29 August - Final presentation/exhibition
*rolling admission involves evaluation of applications as soon as they are received; it differs from standard submissions in that there is no waiting for the deadline to evaluate all applications. Thus part of the selection communication can be done even before 25 July.


Details of the entire Focus Atelier 2021 programme can be found on the focusatelier.ro website. For any information the organisers can be reached at asociatia.reciproca@gmail.com


Focus Atelier 2021 is a project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the grantee.