May 29 – 30, 2024, 10 am – 12:30 pm

Many thanks to the artist, researcher, teacher and curator Dr. Shoufay Derz for her workshop introducing our participants to CREATIVE STRATEGIES: Photographic Poetics of the Ordinary and Extraordinary during the basic course within the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.

“Through the key themes of imagination, transformation, impermanence, opacity and relationship, this workshop will consider photography as a poetic, experimental method. Our activities will explore technical skills as well as conceptual and philosophical questions of the themes.

We will engage in a series of individual and collaborative short exercises that explore the potential of improvisation and play to create unexpected photographic poems/stories. Activities will be conducted within set parameters and under supervision and guidance.

We can approach photography like drawing, as it is not just a process of observation or capture, but also a relationship of translation and imagination. The aim is to break our habitual ways of seeing (or not seeing) by introducing playful exercises into our practice routines.

Technically, we will explore conventional photographic compositional strategies such as color, tone, form and pattern. However, special attention will be given to provisional and experimental tactics for creating images with quotidian or commonplace materials to learn to make the most of the overlooked and unseen. The activities are experimental and playful, as we approach them without a specific outcome in mind, instead focusing on the process and not knowing where things will lead.

We will consider historical and contemporary artists who approach the themes both materially and conceptually in their practice. The artists we will focus on are not limited to photography, as we will also explore how examples of other media and texts on these themes can be developed into ideas for the photographic medium. How, for example, can the theme of opacity in a painting be transferred to a photograph?

There will be an opportunity to ask the instructor about specific techniques you would like to achieve and also time to share the results of the exercises with the group. No previous knowledge of photography or image making is required, but participants with more experience are also welcome.

The workshop instructor will demonstrate using their own camera and the participants will bring their own camera, be it an SLR camera, a camera or a smartphone.” (Text by courtesy of Dr. Shoufay Derz)

Shoufay Derz, an Australian-born artist, researcher, teacher and curator of Taiwanese and German heritage, has worked in Berlin since 2019. As of 2022, she serves as the Co-director at The Institute of Endotic Research, focusing on exploring relational and community practices within and beyond the visual arts realm. In 2023, Derz was awarded her PhD, centred on her research titled ‘Towards the Unknown: The Visual Poetics of the Ineffable.’

Her research delves into the limits and possibilities of language and visual expression, particularly within diasporic contexts, engaging in conversations about belonging and alienation. Her artistic endeavours involve proposing rituals and alternate archives at the thresholds of world(s) beginnings and ends, inviting collective imagination to explore unknown possibilities. Her recent work playfully incorporates improvisational tactics and humour to convey the ephemeral and transformative facets, possibilities, limitations, and risks of site-specific storytelling. Spanning diverse mediums such as moving images, textiles, sculpture, photography, performance, and text, her interdisciplinary practice aims to link language silences with voids present in social, structural, and geological landscapes, contemplating temporal wounds and the uncertainties of future terrains.

Select exhibitions include The Outside Art Project at London’s King’s Cross curated by the Photographers Gallery, the Pingyao International Photography Festival, the Auckland Festival of Photography, and Dark Heart, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Noteworthy residencies include Künstlerhaus Bethanien awarded by Creative Australia from 2019 to 2020 and a visiting artist position at The New School – Parsons, NYC, in 2017. Derz has received accolades such as the 52nd Blake Prize for Religious Art early in her career.

More information on the Shoufay Derz & The Institute of Endotic Research Websites.