workshop: instability

Media: photography
Date: September
Location: Zoukak
Facilitator: Randa Mirza
Participants - Lamia Abi Azar, Junaid Sarieddine, Roy Deeb

View the photo-narratives >>

An alley, or “Zoukak”, might be a narrow street, leading to another place or ending at an extremity. However, it remains a place, a passage, more intimate and spontaneous for a reunion. In contrast with a road, an alley helps passersby catch its intriguing details and savor every moment as they walk through for it holds endless opportunities. We have chosen to be the passers and inhabitants of the alleys. - Zoukak band

I started working on the workshop with Zoukak's members by discussing with them their interest in photographic images as well as the subjects that they would like to explore. They were curious in investigating the relation between the three dimensionality of body postures and the two dimensionality of the photo. The theme suggested was “instability”.

We worked on the reflection of the self using two human size mirrors. The idea was to recreate in real life the internal system of the camera. What we see in the viewfinder is not the object in front of the camera but the image of its reflection in two mirrors located in the black box of the camera. The play between the multiple reflections of the bodies in the mirrors constituted an approach to angles in photography. The fragmentation of the bodies by the mirrors was an introduction to composition. The mirrors were also an important part in helping the participants to understand the notion of frame. The idea constantly revisited was the relation between reality and the virtual, what is real and what is unreal, how much the choice of the angle affects one's reading of a picture.

The participants worked also on each other's portraits and self-portraits through their reflections in the mirrors. The mirrors were then removed. At that stage the photographers were in direct relation to their subject, whether that subject was the other or the self.

<< back to workshops