1) The Body as a Canvas Symposium: Jennifer Pattison - 19/1/18

On Friday we had a symposium all about 'The Body as a Canvas', in which I heard Jennifer Pattison speak. You can see my notes from the guest speaker below.

She started off the lecture by giving us a little background knowledge about her. She worked at Lucy Pritchard for 4 years after graduating, however got sick of commercial photography after this long, and felt disconnected from the photography she knew and loved.

My favourite project of hers out of the three she spoke about in the talk was her series 'Flower Boys', a celebration of where we are now, where men can be as feminine as they like. After taking inspiration from victorian and American folk paintings, she created portraits of men (who she found herself or were scouted by agencies) with flowers, focusing on confident and free boys around East London. Below are some of my favourite portraits of hers.

I really love how she's used their bodies as a canvas to convey ideas about their identity. The flowers also add to this, and I just think the use of portraiture and flowers together looks so beautiful. She also said in the lecture that she used stylists and casting to help create this image she had in her head, which I think is really important to do if you want to make money from your own personal work, because these aspects can really strengthen the ideas you want to put across. I also thought it was amazing that through this project she became sponsored by a florist (McQueens), which reiterates my point about strengthening your own ideas with the use of others. It highlights to me that collaboration is such an important part to photography, and it's something I should experiment more with while being in university.

Another interesting point I got from her talk was her saying:

"There's always got to be a representation of you in your photographs".

I found this really engaging, because it highlights that your photography can show a lot of your suppressed emotions or subconscious things that you wouldn't usually be able to draw out. Thinking back to my previous projects I wouldn't say I can pinpoint thoughts from my own subconscious, however I really like this idea. It's a great thing to actively think about when looking at your own photography or other peoples, because it gives another level of meaning and understanding to it.

After the talks had finished I also stayed behind to speak to the guest speakers to show some work. This was the first time I did this so I was a little nervous but it went really well and I got some great feedback on my Greenhouses zine and my Rapt zine. I also explained that I wanted to take more portraits for this next project, and asked them for some tips on how to take them effectively, and they gave some really great advice which you can see below.

Overall I found the symposium really engaging, but more importantly the time I got afterwards to speak to the artists, so this is something I definitely want to utilize more with future guest speakers. I'm also going to email Jennifer and see if she has any assisting work, as I really love her Flower Boys work and it reminds me of my Greenhouses zines.

#symposium #creativeinteractions #guestspeaker