from:
Anna Lily Howell
April 29, 2023
the trouble with writing a critical rationale about socially-engaged practice
So…
Fresh eyes
A new project
In collaboration with … (was it in collaboration or should I give Nika all the credit)
Do I even use the ‘almost-buzz-word’ term ‘that-seems-to-tick-the-right-boxes’…“collaboration”?
Today the title is “Nika” or maybe something in Farsi. I think I like it because if I use something like ‘white girl comes to Dinner’, which is actually what happened, all of the concerns around outsider positionality begin to rear their head. Why should I as a 20-year-old, Caucasian female with no experience of war or persecution, have the privilege to tell stories about the migrant experience?
Maybe “I’m gonna record…” is a better title. Something Nika led with when she picked up the camera for the first time.
The sensitivities and considerations around this project are vast and to speak about this body of work, feels like an attempt to do something quite complex, which it is. With questions around language, responsibilities to marshal, and different hats to wear as the facilitator of the work, it often feels like more questions arise than answers. Maybe that’s where I start. With questions.
The short film is an attempt at opening up the process of collaborative, socially-focussed strategies to filmmaking, navigating the relationship between the film’s central participant, Nika and the camera, and myself.
Through the process of making the work, I began to realise that the basis for my “research” became the final film, putting into ‘practice’ the process as my practice. The moments of surprise and serendipity became the work, the offcuts of shaky shots and stifled laughter before people gathered themselves together, in order to “pose” in front of the camera or whatever. One could say “it introduced new filmmaking methodologies as forms of exchange and agency between participants” but in its most natural form, it was a lesson about learning to lose, being willing to be taught, sharing, exchanging, and collaborating.
It feels easier as the “artist” to speak from within the work, with experience of the long-standing relationships with the participants, the many hours of playing uno, the alternate dinners at one another’s houses. But how do I helpfully contextualise and visualise those months of engagement in the work? Can one ever prevent an audience’s misunderstanding and the misinterpretation of work such as this?
I can speak of the many months preceding, before picking up a camera was even considered
I can say all of this, but most importantly, you want to SEE it
(What is the work visibly about)
I’ve done a lot of research on different, socially-engaged methodologies. (I can’t tell if it’s better informing my decisions when making or helping me hiding in the studies) From the haptic inscriptions of Wendy Ewald, to the aesthetic and artistic value of Suzanne Lacy’s collaborations using image and video, to advocate and provoke, the question is, do I use these? Do they make sense in the context of these individuals? When appropriate, I’m learning to let go of old methodologies.
However, when it comes to resolving a body of work through a written rationale, to me, it suggests that there must be a plan and/or resolved reasoning for what the work is to be, before it is made. A set of predetermined conditions. And yet, when it comes to collaborative practices, it doesn’t seem to fit.
So how do you resolve an informed, yet unresolved body of work in the tight confines of a critical rationale?
Maybe this is the answer, maybe my rationale concludes something like this
a manifesto of my coulds and could nots and maybes, of what my work is and what it is not
A declaration of intentions / motives / a statement of ethics / questions to ask
The film is in no way a resolution
Sometimes its a back and forth relationship
There are difficulties and an unsureness when collaborating at times
Question of making
I’ve been trying to fit the work into the mould of a resolved, narrative, short film
And yet,
It is not
It’s a question of engagement
A question about collaboration
An exploration
On
The questions we ask
How do we evaluate projects?
What is the notion of an evaluation?
What are those questions?
Facilitation is of a shared vision
The experience of making, particularly collectively, is not linear
Collaborative filmmaking is supposed to experimental
And I’m learning that
There are porous boundaries
Between process and output
Collaboration and participation
“Artist” and “participant”
Visibility and Transparency – visibility of whom?
What are my roles and responsibilities as an “artist”, in this work?
What even is an artist? Who are the artists? Where are the boundaries between artist and participant?
Where does power come in to play?
How do we put off our own vision for the insightful learning experiences of others?
Does the work benefit us or the collaborators as well?
As a facilitator, curate the conditions for collective surprise
Allow for accessible entry points for the makers and for the audiences
As a teacher, allow for new strategies of pedagogy to arise.
To be, or not to be
To enter with a camera or not
Should photography be the start or the end of an engagement?
Should the image take any precedent in a relationship?
Should any engagement be able to wholly exist outside of the camera?
Maybe
It all starts
With a question
April 29, 2023
the trouble with writing a critical rationale about socially-engaged practice
So…
Fresh eyes
A new project
In collaboration with … (was it in collaboration or should I give Nika all the credit)
Do I even use the ‘almost-buzz-word’ term ‘that-seems-to-tick-the-right-boxes’…“collaboration”?
Today the title is “Nika” or maybe something in Farsi. I think I like it because if I use something like ‘white girl comes to Dinner’, which is actually what happened, all of the concerns around outsider positionality begin to rear their head. Why should I as a 20-year-old, Caucasian female with no experience of war or persecution, have the privilege to tell stories about the migrant experience?
Maybe “I’m gonna record…” is a better title. Something Nika led with when she picked up the camera for the first time.
The sensitivities and considerations around this project are vast and to speak about this body of work, feels like an attempt to do something quite complex, which it is. With questions around language, responsibilities to marshal, and different hats to wear as the facilitator of the work, it often feels like more questions arise than answers. Maybe that’s where I start. With questions.
The short film is an attempt at opening up the process of collaborative, socially-focussed strategies to filmmaking, navigating the relationship between the film’s central participant, Nika and the camera, and myself.
Through the process of making the work, I began to realise that the basis for my “research” became the final film, putting into ‘practice’ the process as my practice. The moments of surprise and serendipity became the work, the offcuts of shaky shots and stifled laughter before people gathered themselves together, in order to “pose” in front of the camera or whatever. One could say “it introduced new filmmaking methodologies as forms of exchange and agency between participants” but in its most natural form, it was a lesson about learning to lose, being willing to be taught, sharing, exchanging, and collaborating.
It feels easier as the “artist” to speak from within the work, with experience of the long-standing relationships with the participants, the many hours of playing uno, the alternate dinners at one another’s houses. But how do I helpfully contextualise and visualise those months of engagement in the work? Can one ever prevent an audience’s misunderstanding and the misinterpretation of work such as this?
I can speak of the many months preceding, before picking up a camera was even considered
I can say all of this, but most importantly, you want to SEE it
(What is the work visibly about)
I’ve done a lot of research on different, socially-engaged methodologies. (I can’t tell if it’s better informing my decisions when making or helping me hiding in the studies) From the haptic inscriptions of Wendy Ewald, to the aesthetic and artistic value of Suzanne Lacy’s collaborations using image and video, to advocate and provoke, the question is, do I use these? Do they make sense in the context of these individuals? When appropriate, I’m learning to let go of old methodologies.
However, when it comes to resolving a body of work through a written rationale, to me, it suggests that there must be a plan and/or resolved reasoning for what the work is to be, before it is made. A set of predetermined conditions. And yet, when it comes to collaborative practices, it doesn’t seem to fit.
So how do you resolve an informed, yet unresolved body of work in the tight confines of a critical rationale?
Maybe this is the answer, maybe my rationale concludes something like this
a manifesto of my coulds and could nots and maybes, of what my work is and what it is not
A declaration of intentions / motives / a statement of ethics / questions to ask
The film is in no way a resolution
Sometimes its a back and forth relationship
There are difficulties and an unsureness when collaborating at times
Question of making
I’ve been trying to fit the work into the mould of a resolved, narrative, short film
And yet,
It is not
It’s a question of engagement
A question about collaboration
An exploration
On
The questions we ask
How do we evaluate projects?
What is the notion of an evaluation?
What are those questions?
Facilitation is of a shared vision
The experience of making, particularly collectively, is not linear
Collaborative filmmaking is supposed to experimental
And I’m learning that
There are porous boundaries
Between process and output
Collaboration and participation
“Artist” and “participant”
Visibility and Transparency – visibility of whom?
What are my roles and responsibilities as an “artist”, in this work?
What even is an artist? Who are the artists? Where are the boundaries between artist and participant?
Where does power come in to play?
How do we put off our own vision for the insightful learning experiences of others?
Does the work benefit us or the collaborators as well?
As a facilitator, curate the conditions for collective surprise
Allow for accessible entry points for the makers and for the audiences
As a teacher, allow for new strategies of pedagogy to arise.
To be, or not to be
To enter with a camera or not
Should photography be the start or the end of an engagement?
Should the image take any precedent in a relationship?
Should any engagement be able to wholly exist outside of the camera?
Maybe
It all starts
With a question