The somewhat different class photo
For many decades, staged photography has not only been a tool in art, but an everyday component of children’s and young people’s lives. Especially selfies – alone or as a group – accompany us in everyday life.
In the workshop, we would like to throw our own spotlight on the exchange between painting, graphic art, sculpture, theatre and photography and build a bridge to selfie culture.
First we will visit the exhibition SchlagLicht at the Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank and explore the composition of pictorial worlds and the staging of people. How are pictures constructed? How are people portrayed? How do artists portray themselves? How do they deal with their identity? How is alienation done and what effect does it have?
In the creative part, the aim is to create an “artistic” class photo by alienating the self and staging it. The participants work haptically on their “alienation” and make masks on a certain theme out of paper plates, coloured paper, fabric scraps and other materials. For the younger groups, this will be circus or carnival of the animals. Older children will work on the Night Café by Hubertus Giebe. What would your class look like if you were all members of a circus, took part in the Carnival of the Animals or were visitors to the Night Café in Hubertus Giebe’s painting?
The group then recreates one of these scenes with the masks they have made and this is captured photographically in front of an improvised stage. Each group receives its own data carrier on which the “somewhat different class photo” can be taken away.