Constructed Worlds:
breaking down a photo series

22 July – 3 August 2024

Sarker Protick

Summer Academy, photos by Helena Kalleitner.

World building is a pivotal process in literature for constructing immersive worlds within the confines of a story. It involves creating intricate landscapes, cultures, histories, and arrangements unique to the narrative universe. It not only provides a backdrop, but also adds depth, texture, and authenticity. The author invites readers into these alternate realities through detailed descriptions, consistent imagery, and richly developed characters.

The course will use ‘world-building’ as a basis for expansion to assess and gain a deeper understanding of how a photo series can develop further. What do our immediate natural environment and infrastructures represent about the current time or the future past? How do we utilize weather patterns, light, and atmosphere to introduce various cycles? How do form, color, or their absence influence different mind states? By examining the spatial histories of a place, utilizing personal accounts to shape directives, and selecting from various modes of image-making, distinctive qualities can be attained within a body of work.

Participants are encouraged to bring at least one ongoing series they are currently pursuing or wish to commit to long-term. Through collective discourse and exercises, one-on-one interactions, and artist-led lectures encompassing personal practice and other relevant works in photography, film, and books, the module aims to encourage students not to limit themselves to being image producers but also to become auteurs of their work.

︎ https://www.summeracademy.at/en/kurse/constructed-worlds-breaking-down-a-photo-series/

︎ SELECTED WORKS