in our first-ever collaboration, salome and sonia are learning self-portraiture in order to better facilitate workshops that give groups of diasporic women agency in authoring their own self-images. through critical/creative studio practice, and a constant stream of images emailed back and forth, we hope to illuminate some of our own reluctance to pose in front of the camera, and better understand the ways making a self-portrait can be a truly transformative experience.
the vulnerability of the process lends itself to collaboration between close friends, and our organization, the sistahfriends project, will facilitate workshops with women of color we may or may not already know. so far in our collaborative work during the first two weeks of the wonder women residency, we began by attempting to ritualize the process, to better get into the space of self-conscious experimentation. we shot digital, video, polaroid and black and white 4×5 film in the studio, and photo-booth “myspace pics” in our respective homes. for me, it’s been difficult to work without having total control over the process/end result, but so far it’s been liberating. especially in the midst of such a busy time for both of us, it was nice to slow down in the studio.
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update: it seems from today’s critique that the videos documenting the process present an interesting component, so we’ll be working on more of everything, but especially video work this week.
http://sistahfriendsproject.tumblr.com / http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sistah-Friends-Project/115703718547147
