ONLINE COURSE
Function of Memory: Photography in Context
Since its beginnings, photography has been shaping our personal and collective memory. We often look to images — whether historical documentation or an archive of family photographs — to help us structure and transform emotional meaning. Can — or perhaps should — a photograph act as a stand-in for truth, feeling, or connection? Through a series of interdisciplinary lectures, creative assignments, and critiques, students will examine the physical and emotional properties that make up a photograph as we investigate its power and consider the possibilities and limitations of what photography can offer. In weekly assignments, students will both make new images and also re-contextualize existing photographic work — for example, from a family archive, public domain historical photos, or found pictures.
Kat Shannon is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator working in photography, text, and video, currently based between São Paulo, Brazil, and Orlando, Florida. Her work examines notions of intimacy, human connection, gender, community, and culture. She holds degrees in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design (BFA) as well as Bard College (MFA).
Kat has held teaching positions at Yeshiva University, Brookdale College, Stetson University, Middlesex College, and ICP, and previously worked for three years as the head curator at an art consultancy in New York. In 2017 Kat co-founded the collaborative artist collective Memory Foam through which she curates exhibitions, publishes and collects artists' books and zines, and produces an artist interview series called “Artists Eat Ice Cream.”
Kat teaches Ways of Seeing, Photography as Pilgrimage, and other personal vision classes for StrudelmediaLive.
katshannon.com
