I listened to a talk by Dr. Praya Agarwal on unconscious bias which was based on her book –Sway (Agarwal, 2020) in which she talked clearly and extensively about the problems we have with even noticing bias. I took reams of notes which I have summarised below:

• Racism often occurs in a subversive, insidious way
  • It is embedded in our structure
  • Everybody does not start from the same place
  • Social media and workplaces trap us into communities – so we often do not see what else is out there
• Technology carries bias
  • One hand – levels field and allows access – but not all have access
  • Extroverted people have an advantage, others get left behind
• Unconscious bias are the implicit produces embedded in our subconscious mind – which we are often simply not aware of
• Children grow up in a gendered society from a very young age
  • Clothing/hair length etc
  • Boys are less likely to read a book or watch a film with a girl as the central character
  • Female authors are moe likely to be read by females
  • Girls form perceptions from early on about what they are likely to be good at – is that nurture or nature?
• Biases can be ‘unlearnt’
• Bias against black fathers – less nurturing – bias that black families are ‘broken’
• Evolution developed the notions of in-groups and out-groups – because of limited resources
  • Still present – but nurture driven (no genetic basis)
• You form a affinity with people like you – that extends to assumptions about their other qualities
• There is a bias about status
  • More likely to trust people with a high/visible status
  • Based on fears/threat and concerns re own status
• Fear is processed quickly via amygdala – often irrational
  • Leads to falling back onto instincts /first impressions rather than conscious thought
• Decision making
  • Fast v slow
  • Automatic (quick and often stereotyped) v controlled (via frontal cortex – thought about)
  • Effortless v effort filled
  • Associative v rule based
• Gender view of emotion
  • There is an assumption that women are more emotional and do not handle pressure asa well
  • Influences decisions in hiring formats
  • Men are thought to be more aggressive/authoritarian
  • Women are often assumed to be more compassionate
• Bias about skin colour starts very early ?age 3
  • Parents need to discuss racial heritage especially in mixed race families
• Newspaper articles often foster increased bias especially around racism/sexism.
  • You cannot automatically believe what is written
• Privilege allows avoidance of bias (sometimes)
• Remember that some biases are positive! – but this can lead to putting people in boxes.

Steps to avoid /minimise bias:

• Avoid generalisations
  • This person, not all people
• Avoid group thinking
• Think twice and allow time for consideration
• Look at things from a different perspective

Everybody always has biases but consciously reflecting on them can help retrain the brain. Social media can lead to extremism as people are afraid of not conforming and tend to join groups/get surrounded by people who agree with them. It is important to allow discussion and dissent or you only ever see what you already believe.

Interesting talk and well worth the time. I will add her book to my reading list.

Reference:

Agarwal, P. (2020) Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias. London: Bloomsbury Sigma.

I attended one of Angela Norrington’s informative talks. For once my notes were legible. – so rather than retyping them I will append them as scans.

One part I found particularly interesting was the discussion about black and white versus colour.  In spite of a general swing to colour plenty of photography is still done with B/W. It allows for concentration on the formal aspects of the image: shapes, texture, tone, form.  Plenty of photographers switch between depending on what sort of work they are doing.  Jeffrey’s quote on colour reducing to an idea less readily than B/W is interesting. Colour is specific – that place – not any place, that person – not any person. If you are planning a black and white image you need to be in the correct mindset. Take the pictures in black and white – not just convert to B/W. Sudden blobs of colour may really stand out – but the same area may hardly show in B/W.  Mixing the two needs to be carefully thought through – and may not work in a small series.

Think about your outcome format. Experiment to see what works best. Try prints, zines, handmade books. Check, check and check again!

This was an interesting whole OCA discussion arranged by Helen Rosemier. Much of the discussion was coloured by the impending assessment and people’s fears about that. (Including my own).

1. Beverly gave an interesting talk where she started by describing her own work and talked about how far it had changed over time from painting to working with dust to make items. She had done (among other things) an endoscopy on her vacuum cleaner! She made several helpful points:
   1. The importance of experimentation – this leads on to thinkings about alternative ideas, which may not come to fruition for years – experiments are seedlings.
      1. Write up all experiments and research
   2. Don’t be afraid to shift your practice – just make a strong rationale for it
      1. Explain why you have shifted and, if possible, where you are going
   3. Develop a dedicated studio space – so you don’t have to constantly put things away half done, room to spread out and think of ideas
   4. Enter open calls – allows engagement with the real world, improves confidence
   5. Write about your work and practice, also think about related artists
      1. Research leads to enhanced work, gives ideas
   6. Maximise the benefits of contact with your tutor – get things asa far as you can before looking for feedback
      1. Look for engagement with other students to get things going
   7. Edit, edit, edit – show your strongest work
   8. Signpost how you want things to be seen – maybe send in photos of how it should be displayed
   9. Keep your learning log up to date – write things up when they happen
   10. Allow plenty of time between last assignment and assessment
2. Kate talked about UVC and how she felt it had been critical to developing her work and understanding. She discussed her concerns re assessment:
   1. The discrepancy between guidelines and the coursework
   2. Understanding the learning outcomes
   3. Fear of not making an optimum selection
   4. Feeling unsupported and alone – worsened by Covid.
   5. The need to be proactive about asking for help – student services, other students, course leaders if needed
   6. Need to analyse your blog
   7. STOP when you have done enough
   8. Good habits to develop
      1. Careful essay structure
      2. Thorough referencing – but all sources into a referencing system
      3. Be clear about word count
      4. Be familiar with LO’s – from the beginning
      5. Be aware you wont always understand things from the first time through
      6. Look outside textbooks to get more information
      7. Blog about what you don’t understand as well as what your do
      8. Remember to document the obvious things
      9. Make personal work as well

3. Alan said he had struggled to get though course because of personal issues but that lead on to home as very personal piece of work
   1. He looked at relationships and medical issues
   2. Think about ‘mistakes’ and serendipity
   3. Note issues and once identified think about how you can resolve them.
   4. A mistake may lead you to a more holistic series
   5. Don’t always automatically delete a ‘bad’ image – as it may be just what you need to spark a project
   6. Use moments of boredom to make experimental pieces
   7. Take creative risks
   8. Think – about ethics, what is happening
   9. Remember to show process and thinking
   10. Think about the reverse side of photographs – think of them as an object.

General points discussed:

• Each assignment/course builds on previous ones.
• Review your work, try and think like a tutor
• Reflect on why things work – and why they don’t. Make notes on it.
• Remember all art is subjective
• How much of yourself are you putting in
• Remember to look at others work
  • Social media
  • Instagram
  • Photoworks
  • TPG
  • 100 heroines

Overall, this was a well worth attending meeting.  There are also note available on G-Drive made by Lynda with very useful advice.

Angela Norrington gave us a very interesting tutorial on the subject of seeing and looking. She utilised a lot of quotes from other authors and clips from films which I am working my way through following up.

The basic premise of the talk was ‘it’s not what you look at – it’s what you actually see that is important’. It is a skill that needs exercised, an active attempt at understanding and can be equated to listening rather than just hearing.

She quoted from Maria Gainza Optic Nerve (Gainza, 2019) about Stendhal Syndrome. I have now read the entire book and found it fascinating, well worth reading with access to the internet at hand to look up the various artists she talks about.

Angela suggested having a regular place or subject you returned to, as you will see something different each time as gradually get a deeper appreciation of it. She also reminded us that looking quickly at everything available means you never truly see anything.  This is something I have found a potential problem in lockdown. There are so many talks/lectures/zooms/museum showings available to look at that I have become overwhelmed and cannot really remember the important parts of anything, or often, even to watch what I wanted to. (Remember 30 second reports- on what you have seen). I need to add Letters from Tove (Jannson, 2019) to my reading list!

Responding to things (images, art, pictures, places) with emotion is critical – what is it about something you have seen that stirs the emotion  – if you can replicate that you have a picture that is ‘peculiar to you’ – from David Suchet.

We also discussed the art of slow photography and slow looking – worth investigating further, and the book Photographs Not Taken (Steacy, 2012) where photographers talk about the images that they missed, the lost shot, where something else got in the way. I have started reading this and it is fascinating- makes you think about what an image is.

The whole talk is available at: https://oca.padlet.org/andreanorrington/laq2kvhc5mpg

References:

Gainza, M. (2019) Optic Nerve. London: Harvil Secker.

Jannson, T. (2019) Letters from Tove. Translated by Death, S. United Kingdom: Sort of Books.

Steacy, W. (ed.) (2012) Photographs not taken: a collection of photographers’ essays. Hillsborough, US: Daylight Community Arts Foundation.

I attended a zoom discussion led by Suzannah Evans. I chose to attend this zoom because of the increasing amount of writing that is required in the photography course and my awareness that I have not done any formal learning on writing since school (a long time ago). She started by making some general comments about writing such as thinking about what we write, and, more importantly, why we write. This zoom focused on writing about place. She gave us three exercises:

1. Writing about a place you have been to regularly during lockdown. I chose to write about the walk out the end of my street, the same one I made images of for exercise 5.3 about a local journey. I will add this as an appendix to that exercise.
2. Thinking about some unusual place names and writing about those. I picked Arakan, which was both the name of the house I lived in as a child and also where my father served in WWII
3. A short piece that is very place specific. I wrote about the harbour where I lived as a child.

We also discussed poetry and how it differed from general writing, a more considered use of words leading to the production of a feeling. Also discussed avoiding the need to impress, to be pretentious and look clever rather than just using the words that are required.

I found the zoom helpful. It has made me think more about how I say things, and why I say them.

My final piece was:

Pagham harbour

No boats, no water

Sand, mud,

Reeds and grass

Lapwings calling, peewit, peewit.

The IAP group had a very useful crossover meeting with people who had done some level 2 courses to discuss the options in more detail than is easily available.

Present were:

• Zoe, Iain, Caroline, Julia and Michael from IAP
• Lynda W., Lynda K., Andrew, and Simon from level 2 and 3

We discussed all the options available in some detail. Everybody seemed to have enjoyed the ones they had done. Simon was particularly enthusiastic about DIC! Everybody said to be aware that Level 2 involved more research and reading and generally less practical work and it was easy to go down the ‘rabbit hole’ of research (a problem I have at the best of times).  There is opportunities in all the courses to investigate things you are specifically interested in, such as archival work, abstracts, landscapes and people. There is a lot of theory involved in all of them.

Everybody said that the courses are not defined by the titles and you can ‘bend’ them to fit your particular interests.

Simon was very clear that he felt DIC was essential as it had completely changed how he looked at photography and had allowed him to become more adventurous and think more about why you take photos and what they mean. What is truth in photography? He commented that he had ended up using all sorts of media, including collage, to extend his work. He had thought it would be very 3^rd person based – but it actually became very personal. Certainly not all photoshop.

Lynda W. Re Landscape, noted that the time scale had really allowed her to extend her work and think about things in more depth, crystallised her thinking, experimented with abstract

Lynda K. Reminded us not to see the genre names as boxes and pointed out that you might completely change what you were doing part way through. Landscape does not have to be outside, might be on a tabletop, or archival. Documentary is also not strictly reportage – but is being rewritten at present. Documentary needs a lot of research (but so do they all).

Andrew commented that SAO was initially very photo intensive and might (but could be done) be difficult at the present – but there is a lot of opportunities within it to meet with people and have discussions about their lives.

The big differences between Levels 1 and 2:

• More time
• More freedom
• More academic work

Noted – none of us are teenagers (!) – therefore have more life experiences to help ground the work and the essays. The essays can be difficult to keep to the limits – so title and subtitle to narrow down exactly what you are talking about. Possibly write the introduction last when you know what. You want to say.

It is useful to have a side-project to work on as otherwise you might not actually do a lot of photography!

Lynda K. – gave 2 useful references

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJR23iD5T4&t=6s

https://aub.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=d232a5bc-0058-4472-bfd2-abed00e42582

Thanks to all the people for sharing their time.

Present:

Zoe, Caroline, Debra, Julia, Ben and Michael, apologies from Mark.

We started by welcoming Michael who is based in Cambridge and has just sent in A4 and plans to go for assessment in November.

There was some discussion about tutors and their role. We would all like more input, although we are aware that they are only paid for specific work around doing a report on the assignments. Everybody prefers face to face (well, on-line) reports rather than just a written feedback as it allows a fuller discussion about the pluses and minuses of the work together with what can be improved (and possibly how). We noted the very useful zooms from Andrea Norrington (links available on IAP Padlet and next one on 15^th July) and also the library webinars (also see IAP Padlet). We all also found the recent zooms from Anna Fox and Susan Bright inspiring. I reminded people about the Scottish Group – we are having a zoom meeting on 07/07 at 1900 as we have missed our usual meeting due to lockdown.

Reports:

Zoe – just sent in A4. Work on family memories using archive photos. Caroline and Julia were both positive about it although somewhat conflicting views – Caroline liked the chronological theme, Julia wondered if it would be better random! This led onto a long discussion about family work generally, and the making of family trees. We discussed that many of us have boxes of family photo in attics or garages, what will happen to all the memory photos when they are all taken digitally and not printed? Will they just disappear? Should we make summary photo albums for our descendants?

Caroline – just sent in A5 (!). Fascinating work on memories and the loss of a previous home (Dubai). She noted that she had wanted the work to be more about the emotions of the place rather than specific images. I (Zoe) found the research fascinating especially the photographers she used and will go back to them in more detail. The video was a new move for me – worth investigating further. She had also made a 3D Art Gallery to show all her work. This gave a great overview of the course – but some of the posted videos were glitchy.

Ben – has mainly been working on his CN assessment. He found the digital assessment worked well for him although he did have to go back over his blog posts and rewrite some for the learning outcomes. He told us about the assessment

• Work related to the learning outcomes with 2 pieces of work to demonstrate each, these can include things that did not go so well and how you improved them.
• 6 – 12 creative pieces
• Tutor reports
• An artist’s statement

This is a significant change in that we are responsible for making the decisions about what we think is good! And also working out whether or not we have met the learning aims and how to demonstrate that.

Ben – sent in A1 – which is his work based on the photos he took at the Glasgow City Mission. Do note, taking pictures of strangers is Ben’s job – so unlike the rest of us he did not struggle with that. We discussed a number of strategies we had used

• Bribing with cake
• A dog making the initial choice of person
• Using Facebook groups to link with local people
• Putting notes through doors

Debra – has now submitted A1 and got immediate feedback. She used the Facebook page for her contacts and took people on their doorstep using a standard set up of lens and tripod. She found talking to the people she met the most interesting thing. She is planning to continue the Covid 19 theme throughout her IAP work. Of note, it may change as lockdown eases/lifts – but these will still be a before/during/after theme available.

Michael – submitted A4 (canals and newspaper headlines). It expressed what he feels about the present situation with Brexit. Is now working of A5. Thinking about doing work related to his family and words they use to describe themselves

Julia submitted A4 and working on A5. She lives in North Norfolk where her husband has strong roots. She has been listening to a poet she knows (Kevin Crossley Holland) and is thinking about a mixed media presentation, including photographs (possibly overpainted with watercolours) and some video work. She noted that she herself is rootless – due to her family history of refugees. That took us back around to the idea of roots and family and a photographic response to that.

Most of this group are nearly at the point where we will need to choose our Level 2 modules and we are all conflicted

• Julia – possibly moving image and landscape
• Caroline – possibly landscape and self and other – but interested in all
• Zoe possibly self and other and documentary or DIC
• Michael – documentary and landscape
• Ben – movie and documentary

We all agreed that it would be useful to have more info on all the courses so thought we would set up a specific zoom meeting to discuss them further and hopefully invite people ho were further along to talk about the pros and cons. We came up with some possible names and Caroline will try to arrange.

Planning:

• Next general meeting for 01/08/20
• Future planning meeting hopefully – 18/07/20