Online Course LENSCAPES: Exploring Urban Identities through Photography as a Fine Art Medium by Niklas Goldbach

“This four-week online course explores the limits and possibilities of photography as an artistic medium through a series of four live sessions with lectures and assignments.

This course delves into the complexities of urban landscapes and their unique identities through photography. In four weeks, you’ll get an introduction how to capture diverse aspects of a city, including its people and culture. Using your camera as a tool, we’ll cover various techniques and approaches to photography, emphasising its artistic potential in telling stories, following conceptual approaches, and capturing the distinctive visual characteristics of urban spaces.

In the first part of the course, we’ll explore how man-made environments shape and reflect the social, cultural, and historical contexts of a city. We’ll investigate the ways in which different neighbourhoods and communities have their own distinct identities, and how they are communicated through architecture, public spaces and other urban features. We will discuss the different sub-genres and approaches of photography which often overlap: street photography, documentary photography and architectural photography. 

In the second part of the course, we’ll examine the role of identity politics in photography and how photographers can use their art to engage with social and political issues. We’ll look at the work of photographers and artists who have used their camera to challenge dominant narratives or amplified the voices of marginalised communities. You’ll have the opportunity to use your own photography to explore issues and aspects of identity and representation, and develop ideas how to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the role of art and photography in shaping our understanding of the world around us.

As a guideline, this course works with concrete tasks: each lecture concludes in an exercise, which the participants can use as a guideline or inspiration for their next project. The assignments will be completed over the course of one week and have to be uploaded before the next session: they will be presented and discussed within the group.” (Text & image by courtesy of Niklas Goldbach)