Workshop: Pinhole camera “Camera Obscura”

Place: Huseby Skole, Trondheim

Time: 14.september-15.november 2020

In this era in which we live, it is easy to take pictures because the cameras are accessible to everyone, and the photography process turned into a push of a button without thinking about this process or how is the camera functioning?

The workshop aims to help the participants to learn more about photographic process and the history of photography and the developments that happened to this medium.

The workshop will be two parts:

The first part will be theoretical, where the participants will learn more about the history of photography throguh looking at the early experiments and thinking about the developments of this medium.

The second part will be practical, where the participants will learn how to create their own Pinhole Camera to take photos and after that going through learning how to develop the photos through the chemical process.

At the end of the workshop, the participants will have a small exhibition where they will exhibit the photos that they have taken during the workshop.

Workshop: Fragment of Nature #3

Place: Huseby Skole, Trondheim

Time: 16.nov 2020-15.jan 2021

Fragment of Nature #3 revolves around the idea of preserving and carrying a fragment of the surrounding nature (of Saupstad) in the pavilion itself, wherever this goes after. The chosen images, now pixelated, is a photograph of a plant that can be found on the surroundings of the school. The “Fragments of Nature #3” is a participatory project that asks the student’s participation for the actual making of the works. This relationship, between the participant, the artist and work will commence an ownership towards the artwork. The project is done using entirely Hama Beads (a widely known toy in Scandinavian childhood). The chosen material has to do with the concept of artificial plants and the desire of human in framing nature for his/her own pleasure. Nowadays, is common the use of artificial plants and, the work is a reinforcement of these two aspects: a plastic representation of a desire.

Each participator (student) will get one board that takes approximately 40 minutes to be concluded. The schedule is to be in the residency 3 to 5 days a week for a period of 5 hours (between 11.00 and 16.00) so the pupils know that can find me there in specific hours. There will be a publication which mentions every participant in the project, serving both the purpose of crediting and documenting all the process.

The project’s goal is to bring awareness to collective/community values and present to children/youth what an artistic practice is about. The final result is a large work composed by individual pieces (related to each participant) that form a collective. Once the participants chooses to help in the making, a relationship is built between the artist, the student and the artwork. This method of creating an image demands time, which allows an engagement in a discourse on art but also other more mundane topics. I will also prepare movie sessions to watch at the same time we produce the work.

Report P1 – Saupstad – March 2021 – Valentina Martínez.

Gentle dialogues with the space

Background and objectives.

In the context of my presence at P1 in Saupstad in March 2021, I proposed a workshop around embodiment, movement, and temporary traces. One of the objectives of this residence was to immerse youth into rediscovering movement and embellishing the everyday through creative expression, somatic awareness, and dance.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are as of now incalculable. Our bodies withdrawn from others, retracted to our screens, our alone time, our own energies and thoughts. Restrictions abound, and they inevitably inflict on restrictions upon our own ways of moving through life. In this residency I intended to propose movement as process and as method, making dance a part of a participation process where we would establish a relationship to the particularity of the P1 space, to our greater surroundings, and to our own way of moving. As part of a process of dealing with the current conditions of social withdrawal and distancing, movement – a meditative and productive activity – was here proposed as a palliative, an alternative for dealing with uncertainty, but also in taking reappropriating the spaces that are ours.

This intervention was offered for students from middle school. It could be taken lightly, as just an opportunity to move and dance, or more reflectively, as an approach to thinking differently about movement, as a way of becoming aware of ways the body can move and create a language not only to move our bodies but to maybe to understand it as well. I believed this could be helpful to the students in other aspects as well. It could contribute to a reconnecting, a shifting of paradigms leading to constructing a new way for them to think about themselves and their surroundings, expanding their notions and perceptions of art and their place in it and in the world.

This residency was led by an interest in the temporary, inclusion, subtle activism, dance and involvement in social issues, and in creating artistic spaces that could open up for dialogue between young people. The choice of workshop connects with an issue that is akin to me as a performer and as a researcher, and that I wish to continue contemplating and putting into display in an artistic setting. Within a framework of action-based research, this residency would also allow me to ask myself questions about my approach to movement and the development of choreographic material.

Methodology

After a meeting with the teacher in contact, we established that mainly due to COVID reasons, I would be working with a set group of students, which I would be meeting with regularly over the course of 3 to 4 weeks. The project would be initially aimed to students from the 10th grade who were interested in dance or movement and in creating a creative dance piece together, that could be possibly shown at the end of the residency. The overall goal of my intervention in P1 in Saupstad was to incite a new interest for movement, somatic awareness, and dance through the production of a creative dance piece with a participatory and inclusive aspect.

Five students agreed to be part of the project. We agreed to hold meetings three times a week during around 1 hour, but I also mentioned that I would be present and available all day in case they wanted to come and use the space alone or with me. I would also be available to a chat or a walk if they needed it. The P1 container was our meeting place and workspace.

From the first meeting with the girls, I mentioned a set of ground rules of honesty, authenticity, joy, and the youth were met by me with openness and curiosity. My intention was to make the P1 space to be a room where the individual experience is important and relevant, where the youth will be heard and hopefully put in a safe space for them to experiment their own expression through movement that is conscious and felt. For this reason, dialogues and openness and sharing rituals would be just as important as movement and choreography. I attempted to create a ritual, of setting our bags in a specific place in the other room, of putting down the mattresses, then a warm-up, some movement exercises, a choreography, and filming. As part of an exploration of the bodily engagement, of occupying places differently, we tried out some negotiations between the body and the space during our sessions together. Some sessions were focused on presence and body awareness, others were more about getting to know each other, asking about their interests and what they want to study after high school, music tastes, however most sessions were about creating choreography.

Results/Conclusions

At the end of our sessions in P1, we learned, danced and filmed around 5 to 6 choreographies, of which one of them was taught by the group to me. I also had two individual dance sessions with two of the students, where I also learned more about their interests and motivations to dance and about the genres they were most interested in. I also held a couple of extra sessions with two more students. Towards the end of the residency, we shared lunch together in P1, and the students were increasingly using the space more comfortably, and even expressed wishes to have extra sessions. Most of the sessions were filmed and photographed, for documentation purposes, and for them to also see themselves dance, but they always were given the choice to not participate in the filming, and they were at all times asked for their consent to use the filming as documentation. Although the filming was important to some extent for documentation, I was interested in giving them the agency over how they experienced their own movement and themselves on film. I stressed the point that it was important for them to feel comfortable first with the idea of dancing and being themselves, and that in that sense the filming was unimportant and could be left aside.

Some of what I’ve learned in the process is to be consistent and coherent with my instructions and my presence among the students. I also learned that over time of dancing together, the students became more comfortable around me and began showing me more of what they were interested in. In our last session, for example, they showed me a K-pop choreography that they had been learning at home.

I believe that spaces that are open for youth to use their creativity in, that are accessible, open and inclusive, can be relevant for them to develop and confirm what they are interested in. P1 has shown that having spaces to express themselves or even just a “hang-out” place is a need for youth, especially in times of restriction and uncertainty. Such places unlock potential for creativity and self-development, even if temporarily.