The Poetics of Space with Helen Hagemann
Friday, 16th June, 1pm-3pm. This workshop is about taking a journey into intimate spaces, through old houses, dream homes, cellars, attics, verandahs, sheds, up stairs, under stairs, even where a whole house might serve as a portal to the imagination. Writers will read sections of Gaston Bachelard's text "The Poetics of Space" and writing exercises will ponder miniature spaces, the significance of doorknobs, even consider the houses of things: drawers, chests and wardrobes.
Venue:
Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room, however check at desk.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 -
NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save). For information on
joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website ootawriters.com
Bachelard determines that the house has both unity and complexity, it is
made out of memories and experiences, its different parts arouse
different sensations at yet it brings up a unitary, intimate experience
of living. Such experiential qualities are what Bachelard finds in the
poetry and prose he analyzes. Home objects for Bachelard are charged
with mental experience. A cabinet opened is a world revealed, drawers
are places of secrets, and with every habitual action we open endless
dimensions of our existence.
In "The Poetics of Space" Bachelard introduces his concept of
topoanlysis, which he defines as the systematic psychological studying
of the sites of our intimate lives. The house, the most intimate of all
spaces, "protects the daydreamer" and therefore understanding the house
is for Bachelard a way to understand the soul.
Inspiration through Photography will focus on several photographers including Juno Gemes (AU), Deidi von Schaewen (DE), and famous aperture photographers, Berenice Abbott (US), Walker Evans (US) and Eugène Atget (FR).
Friday, 19th May, 1pm-3pm. Instead of readings we will look at the various artists' works choosing certain photographs to write about. Writers may choose to bring a favourite snap or photo album as a desired alternative.
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Paint Studio, however check at desk.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save.For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website ootawriters.com
Eugène Atget photographed the city of Paris and its environs obsessively for almost thirty years. He discovered a market for documentary photographs of Old Paris, which were bought by artists as source material for their canvases. But for Atget, the production of photographs about old French culture was also an occasion for making art.
His photographs are unparalleled in their lucid realism and their lyrical response to the living pulse of the city and to artifacts that speak of human life in almost every social class. His images of parks, lakes, shop windows, vendors, prostitutes, buildings, sculptures, and street scenes of Paris go beyond mere documentation to a poetic version of a time gone by. Atget created some of the most beautifully articulated images of light and space ever made with a camera-an imaginary world.
Walker Evans, more than any other photographer in the thirties and forties, defined the documentary aesthetic. For over four decades he used his camera precisely and lucidly to record the American experience. He is generally acknowledged as America's finest documentary photographer of this century.
He attempted to show both the beauty of his subjects and the horror of the social conditions in which they lived. During the Depression, from 1935 to 1937, Evans took part in the most extensive photographic project ever carried out in the United States - the pictorial survey of the Farm Security Administration. The now-legendary collaboration with James Agee that resulted in the masterpiece Let us Now Praise Famous Men documents his dedication to photographing the country he knew. Evans's talented eye and sensitive heart make him one of the great photographers of this century.
May 28, 2017
