About

This is a blog for the intermediate photography course, Picturing Identity, which will be directed at and focused on the exploration of identity and diversity.

While diversity points to the make-up of any given community, identity—that is, how we each self-identify and how others identify each of us—can be personally and/or socially constructed. What identity looks like is an aspect of diversity that can be difficult to discuss. Appearances, after all, are often deceiving and can easily lead to stereotyping, profiling, and worse. But, are there visual clues or signs that we can legitimately explore, discuss, and use in image-making and within a broader discussion of diversity?

As context, we will look at historical and contemporary artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds who engage in questions of identity—either through the depiction of the self or of the other. Against the heteronormative mode of expression and taste, we will explore how art (and photography, more specifically) has responded to and influenced changing norms in our conception and understanding of the individual in relation to various publics. Racial, ethnic, gendered, sexual, religious, and socio-economic facets of identity will be considered as students make pictures that explore the nature of identity.

This course will look at diversity through the spectrum of its participants—that is, the participants of this course will help determine the specific direction of our inquiry, while positioning that inquiry within an art historical and theoretical context.

TA hours: 

Sundays 2-7 and 7:30-10:30

Mondays 4:30-10:30

Wednesdays 4:30-10