The Life You’re In: The Joy and Pathos of Autobiography (Mondays)
This course will help students step back from their own unfolding stories and create work about their life, whether based on memories or the current situation. Memory exercises will unlock personal material — interests, preoccupations, and connections to current circumstances — to help find a productive direction. Learning to be specific and authentic is key; fears, inhibitions, and practical obstacles will be discussed and confronted to allow students to mine their most compelling experiences. Many references will be made to contemporary photography, as well as to examples from the history of photography, art, and film. Any subject is viable as long as the photographer is sufficiently moved by it. Form follows content, and the photographer’s choice of approach will be analyzed for its applicability and expressiveness.
Allen Frame is an artist, writer, curator, and educator based in New York, where his work is represented by Gitterman Gallery. In 2025, his solo exhibition Amalfi was presented at College of Charleston and his photographs exhibited at Kupper-Modern in Zurich and at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College. He has released four books of photography, including Whereupon (Palermo Publishing, 2023); Innamorato (Meteoro Editions, 2023); Fever (Matte Editions, 2021); and Detour (Kehrer, 2001). He has also been the curator of many exhibitions, including Luxe, Calme, Volupte, co-curated with Sergio Bessa at Candice Madey Gallery, New York, in 2023, and Love and Jump Back, the Photography of Charles Henri Ford, at Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, 2020-21. He received the Rome Prize from the American Academy in 2017/18. He teaches photography at Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, International Center of Photography, and for Strudelmedialive.com
Allen teaches “The Life You’re In: The Joy and Pathos of Autobiography” for StrudelmediaLive.
allenframe.net
