LSE arts is pleased to present talking pictures: a series of evening talks and film screenings.
Featuring an impressive list of speakers from academia, journalism, activism and art, we hope that these talk events will provide plenty of scope for exploring the purpose, nature and politics of representing poverty in its many guises.
Public lecture with Jessica Dimmock
Documentary photography: the long term project
Date: Thursday, 7 May 2009
Time: 7:00-8:100pm
Venue: New Theatre, East Building
Jessica Dimmock outlines the issues and obstacles relating to documentary photography, and the value of the long-term project.
She explores the process of engaging with subjects and the stories resulting from such sustained focus. This talk also considers the development of story ideas for the freelance photographer.
Jessica Dimmock is a graduate of the International Center of Photography's Program in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism.
She has received the F Award for Concerned Photography from Forma and Fabrica, the Inge Morath Award from Magnum, and the Marty Forsher Fellowship fro Documentary Photography from PDN. Her work has appeared in Aperture, The New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Time, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Wired, and Fader. Her first book, The Ninth Floor (Contrasto), was published in 2007, and her first international solo exhibition held at Forma, The International Center of Photography, Milan. In Spring 2008, Jessica had two solo exhibitions - at Foam, The Photography Museum of Amsterdam, and at Foley, New York.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk| or phone 020 7955 6043.
Public lecture with Sharron Lovell
Urban nomads
Day: Monday,11 May 2009
Time: 7:00-8:00pm
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
China is a country in superlative transition. Media attention focuses primarily on the economic miracle and burgeoning political power, while the interwoven and critically important story of mass human migration remains a postscript. Driven from crumbling countryside economics, 200 million Chinese have moved to the cities, serving as cogs in an engine powering unprecedented growth. Though they are changing every facet of Chinese life, these internal migrants are, by law and practice, second-class citizens in their own land. They gamble everything - health, safety and family - to grab a piece of the modern Chinese life.
Sharron Lovell is a photographer currently based in Shanghai. When approaching Viewing Restricted, Sharron aimed to involve the subject matter in the migrants' own representations; extensive interviews lead the narratives and participants were also invited to shoot pictures and edit the final work. Media treatment of China's migration tends to homogenize their experiences; by contrast Urban Nomads attempts to look at the issue on a micro, human scale.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk| or phone 020 7955 6043.
Public lecture with Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg
The winning side of an image
Date: Thursday, 21 May 2009
Time: 7:00-8:00pm
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Documentary photography is problematic. Without a witness, a victim is alone and dehumanised. We also know that victims are made for, or even by, the camera.
In presenting their work from Afghanistan, while embedded with the British Army last June, Adam and Oliver attempt to highlight and compensate for these blind spots. In addition to showing The Day Nobody Died, they also present extracts from works produced in Iraq, The Red House, and Israel, Chicago.
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have collaborated for over a decade in which time they have produced six books examining the language of documentary photography in different ways. These include Mr Mkhize's Portrait (2004) which documented South Africa ten years after apartheid and accompanied a solo show at the Photographers Gallery; Chicago (SteidMACK 2006), an exploration of the militarisation of contemporary Israel which was exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum; and The Red House (Steidl 2007), produced in the cells below the former Ba'athist Party Headquarters in Iraq.
Adam and Oliver are recipients of many awards, including the Vic Odden Award from the Royal Photographic Society, and are trustees of the Photographers' Gallery and Photoworks. They lecture on the MA in Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk| or phone 020 7955 6043.
Public lecture with Mishka Henner
All that life can afford
Day: Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Time: 7:00-8:00pm
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
For some, London is a playground of excess offering the promise of social mobility. For others, it is a bureaucratic nightmare preventing self-determination and basic rights such as shelter and employment. Through photographs, slogans and quotes, Mishka's photographic essay All That Life Can Afford explores the divided relationships wealthier and poorer Londoners have with the city. In this talk, Mishka seeks to deconstruct the production of All That Life Can Afford to reveal the negotiations and obstacles involved in visualising poverty, questioning photography's usefulness in exposing the often hidden mechanisms that keep a city's population divided.
Mishka Henner is a photographic artist based in Manchester, England.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk| or phone 020 7955 6043.
Public lecture with Mark Saunders and Martin Slavin
1-The fog of Games: legacy, land grabs and liberty
Mark Saunders
2-Reporting the London Olympics
Martin Slavin
Day: Thursday, 28 May 2009
Time: 7:00-8:00pm
Venue: New Theatre, East Building
In The Fog of Games, the first casualty is the truth. The Olympics are brief and transitory television events that disguise and justify mega projects of vast urban restructuring that permanently distort our cities for the benefit of a few business interests. Common features of such projects are unprecedented land grabs, the peddling of myths of 'regeneration' and 'legacy' benefits, the sweeping away of democratic structures and planning restraints, the transfer of public money into private hands, and 'information management' to hide truths and silence critics.
In these talks, Mark Saunders shows work-in-progress from Spectacle's film www.spectacle.co.uk/projects_page.php?id=175| and Martin Slavin shares his experiences of working with a local group which created www.gamesmonitor.org.uk| that reports on the credibility gap between the publicity of the London Olympic industry and the history of previous Games in other cities.
Mark Saunders is an independent documentary filmmaker, media activist and writer. His films include Battle of Trafalgar, The Truth Lies in Rostock 93, Exodus Movement of Jah People and Quand les Papiers Arrivent... His work has been presented at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, the National Film Theatre, and the Photographers' Gallery, as well as Kunsthalle Exnergasse WUK Vienna, the National Architecture Institute, the Netherlands, and Bozar, Brussels. He has lectured at Florence University School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art, and is a visiting lecturer at the London College of Communication.
Martin Slavin has been engaged with photography since receiving his first camera at the age of 14. He learnt about photography by looking at photos, taking pictures, and working in journalism as a photographer, picture researcher and founder member of the reportage agency, Network Photographers. Martin's continuing interest in photographing and writing about urban experiences is encapsulated by his current focus on the 2012 London Olympics which is taking place in his neighbourhood.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk| or phone 020 7955 6043.
Public lecture and screening by Renzo Martens
Enjoying poverty
Date: Thursday, 4 June 2009
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Venue: New Theatre, East Building
Renzo Martens presents a special screening of his film Episode III, (88 minutes). Episode III - 'Enjoy Poverty' investigates the emotional and economic value of Africa's most lucrative export: filmed poverty. As with more traditional African exports such as cocoas and gold, the suppliers of this new African commodity hardly benefit from it at all. Deep in the interior of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Renzo launches an emancipatory programme that aims to help the poor become aware of their primary 'resource': poverty.
Over several years, Renzo undertakes an epic journey. Combining investigative journalism, satire and self-awareness in a deeply individualistic view, Episode III - 'Enjoying Poverty' is ingeniously provocative and ironic, despite the sad reflection staring back in the mirror that he hold up.
Renzo Martens studied at the Catholic University at Nijmegen, he Vrije Universiteit, Brussels, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Episode III was recently exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam and screened as part of the city's International Documentary Festival. In recent years he has had solo exhibitions in London, Amsterdam, Toronto and Brussels.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk| or phone 020 7955 6043.