Join us and the Photography Ethics Centre for this year’s Photography Ethics Symposium on the theme of vulnerability on the 2nd Decemeber 2022.
About the Event
The aim of the Photography Ethics Symposia is to promote conversation and critical thought about ethics in photography. This year, we aim to approach the topic of vulnerability from multiple angles. We will discuss the ethical implications of documenting vulnerability in others, of photographing our own vulnerabilities, and of exhibiting such photographs with care. We will also explore how we can exhibit vulnerability in ourselves. When we make mistakes and our ethics are questioned, it can feel like a personal affront. What happens if, instead of responding with defensiveness, we respond from a place of openness to being wrong and to learning something new? How could such moments inspire our own development as photographers, foster productive conversations about ethics, and promote positive change in the industry?
We will hear from three photographers who will each discuss vulnerability in their practice Raphaela Rosella, Justin Carey and Sophie Harris-Taylor. The speakers’ presentations will be followed by a round table discussion. Attendees are invited to submit questions to the panelists in advance via email at info@photoethics.org. There will also be an opportunity to submit questions to speakers during the event.
After the round table discussion, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in an open space session on vulnerability. This session will not be recorded, as it is intended as a safe space for a guided discussion with other photographers.
Project Ethics Reviews
At the end of the day, there are a limited number of slots available for Project Ethics Reviews. The aim of the one-to-one Project Ethics Review is to discuss individuals’ current projects, highlight ethical questions that they may not have considered, and discuss possible resolutions. The idea for this kind of review comes from the understanding that most photographers now work outside of institutions and lack institutional oversight and support to help to work through these kinds of problems. These one-to-one sessions will be conducted by the three speakers and Savannah Dodd of the Photography Ethics Centre.
To book a project ethics review:
Please include a 1-2 sentence description of the project you would like to discuss to rebecca@redeye.org.uk, as this will help us to pair you with a reviewer. Reviews are scheduled for 30 minutes, and will take place between 15:00-17:00 GMT. There are 16 spots available, and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. The cost of the Projects Ethics Review is £10. For Photography Ethics Centre certified photographers and for RedEye members, this fee will be refunded after attendance at the review.
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About the Speakers
Raphaela (Rosie) Rosella is an Australian artist of Italian immigrant and Anglo-Celtic convict/settler descent who resides in Meanjin/Brisbane. Rosella’s practice draws from her lived experience of being raised in an over-policed, low socioeconomic community in New South Wales, Australia. Working at the intersections of socially engaged art and long-form documentary practice, Rosella has spent over fifteen years co-creating photo-based projects alongside her friends, family members and extended kin to resist bureaucratic representations of women whose lives intersect with the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Unveiling the ineptitude of ‘official records’, their co-created archive has been used across family albums, memorial services, legal proceeding, and art exhibitions, including Photo Biennale Photoquai (France), UNSW Galleries (Australia), Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art for Organ Vida International Photography Festival (Croatia) and The Centre for Contemporary Photography (Australia). By positioning ethics and consent as an ongoing process of relationality, engagement, and negotiation, Rosella engages in a broader theoretical dialogue around the power and authority of state archives, photography’s complicity in maintaining imperial regimes and their connections to the PIC. In doing so, Rosella has developed forms of resistance against imperial archival practices imposed by Eurocentric Arts Institutions and stakeholders to ensure co-creators have choice, control and autonomy over their representations and archival material. Furthermore, their work has resulted in several co-creators obtaining significantly reduced custodial sentences and multiple successful bail and parole applications.
Justin Carey was the recipient of a ReFramed bursary in 2020 to create work about the COVID-19 pandemic, the outcome of which was exhibited at FORMAT photography festival in 2021 and published in the book The Travelling World Is Not Arriving. His Reaching Out Into The Dark project was shown at Studio1.1 gallery in London in 2018 and was featured on the Photo Ethics Podcast. He is currently based in Birmingham, UK.
Documenting the personal lives and experiences of her own and others, Sophie’s work is effortlessly truthful, approached with a sensitivity and confidence. Loosely based in portraiture, her practice is often a combination of images and text. Opening conversations and telling people's stories, which may otherwise go unspoken. The themes are driven by her own preoccupations and vulnerabilities a way for her to process and digest through the lives of others. Regardless of content, Sophie’s work is crucially bound together by aesthetics, always seeking to in some way glorify that which is not conventional.
She’s had three books published, ‘Milk’, ‘Sisters’ and ‘MTWTFSS (Chapter 1)’ and had two solo exhibitions, ‘MTWTFSS’ in 2016, and ‘Epidermis’ in 2019. Sophie has been selected for the Taylor Wessing Prize, Creative Review Photography Annual and the BJP Portrait of Britain amongst others. Sophie was born in London in 1988, where she still lives.
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Who is it for?
It is open to photographers of any genre, experience and background. This is a space for you to learn more about what it means to be vulnerable and what that looks like within photographic practice both in other photographer's work, and within your own. It will be a space to discuss the impact of telling stories of others and your own through photography, and ask how can we do this ethically? A learning space to relfect and engage without judgement.
When?
This event runs from 12:00 - 17:00 on Friday 2nd Decemeber; 2022.
The ethics reviews are scheduled for 30 minutes, and will take place between 15:00-17:00 GMT depending on your booking slot.
Where?
Online! You will need an internet connection and a computer, smartphone or tablet.
It will take place online via zoom to try and make it as accessible as possible. If you have any specific access needs please get in touch and let us know. Contact: rebecca@redeye.org.uk
Tickets
Event is donation-based, pay as you feel
Review sessions are £10 (Refundable for PEC certified and RedEye members)
Image credit: Raphaela Rosella, 'Collage Detail'
**If you would like to make a booking for this event and this booking button below isn’t working for you, please contact Laura at laura@redeye.org.uk with your full name and we will get you registered.**