Dialogues past-presente with the photography
in the education of art in the public school: sharing a Brazilian
experience
Ana Maria Schultze1
I will describe here my practice, as art teacher, at a public school in the periphery of the
city of São Paulo, Brazil, in youth and adult education.
By this practice, I create conditions for my pupils from a poor school developing aesthetic
experiences through paths approaching photographic images.
In such paths, we revisit photography's past: its creation, utilization throughout its history,
reality and fiction, and associate dialogue to the contemporaneous photographic image
and its issues, such as identity, mass culture, education for media, artistic creation
technologies, multi-culturalism, hybridism between languages, among other.
Adolescents and adults are invited to read photographic images from their references,
which are multiple at a large and diversified country as Brazil is, to make associations to
their and their colleagues' lives, and to and to perform their artistic practice through
photography, by actions contributing toward development of citizenship once the reflective
contact with photography, in a highly imagetic world as the current one, means
contributing to the formation of people who are more critical and conscious of their rights
and duties, as well as those of their peers.
Key-words: education and art learning; photography; public school; youth and adult
education; multi-culturalism; development of citizenship.
Teaching methods
Text:
Photos are omnipresent: glued to albums, reproduced in newspapers,
displayed on store windows, office walls, fixed onto walls as posters,
printed on books, canned goods, T-shirts. What do such photos mean?
Vilém Flusser2
What do photos mean to my pupils, adolescents and adults of the EJA (Youths and adults
education) course, of a school in the periphery of the city of São Paulo?
Left to their own fate in this huge metropolis, my pupils who came from the whole country
to try their luck in the big city, living in slum sheds, small popular residential buildings,
under bridges, in summary, where they can, with their numerous families, supported by
low remunerated unskilled labor job, or informal sub-employment. How do they deal with
the omnipresent photographic images, which fill the day to day events, eyes and minds, to
the point of anesthetizing the senses?
For discussing issues like these, I propose in school, in at classes, a project bringing to the
center of the stage, the photography language and its utilization nowadays.
Working with photography at a poor school, which deprived students who had no
conditions for paying for films and their development, required a project that would fit to
this reality would generate alternatives for the pupils' both having contact with
photographic images from various sources and reading them, and carrying out their own
photographic practice.
I call photographic image reading the process of interpretation and decodification of
symbols existing in the image, made not under an universal alphabet, but rather before the
individual repertory of each of them which, as Cristina Rizzi3 reminds us, quoting Parsons,
happens in a unique way, since
“...people react in different ways to art works because they understand
them in a different manner - they have distinct concepts as to what an art
work should be, its characteristics, the way of judging it - and all this deeply
affects their way of acting, even if not consciously. Thus, it is essential that
the educator considers the spectator/receiver before the work and its
former experiences.”
Considering that each pupil construes an image, in this case the photographic image,
understanding it according to its concepts, including whether (or not) it is an art work, is
fundamental by the educator. Acknowledging that, within such a multiple group as in the
EJA, different interpretations occur, pursuant to the students' specific references, is
respecting huge Brazil's multi-culture.
Photographic image reading is, therefore, also a moment of artistic re-creation by the
spectator. Authors like Michael Parsons4, Mirian Celeste Martins5, Luiz Guilherme
Vergara6, Robert Ott7, John Dewey8, Umberto Eco9, Ana Maria Schultze10, Boris Kossoy11,
among other, recognize the reader/enjoyer as co-author of the artistic composition, while
using their personal repertory for creating new meanings to that work. This already is a
moment of photographic creation by the students.
On this relationship with the photographic image, I propose anew way of access,
performed much more slowly than the daily hasty exposure to photography from distinct
vehicles and channels. For such, we draw a route alternating from photography inserted
into its historic context and the contemporaneous production by the students. A dialogue
between the photographic image along its history, in the past, and its present updating, at
school.
It is in this conversation that the pupils start perceiving the photography's role, the
purposes it is intended for, and particularly, the symbolic development performed by a
social being - the photographer or artist - at a given context, but re-inserted into new ones.
In the past-present relationship, I intend to always lead my pupils to living an aesthetic
experience, in the meaning proposed by Dewey12, where
In an emphatic aesthetic-artistic experience, the relationship is so close that
it concurrently controls doing and perceiving [...]When it is an aesthetic
experience, hands and eyes are instruments through which the whole living
creature, totally active and in motion, operates. Then, the expression is
emotional and directed by intent.
Like Dewey, I don’t distinguish aesthetics (reading, enjoying) from artistic practice. Both
walk side by side and supplement each other, enriching my pupils. This is a central point in
this project: creating conditions for both enjoyment and photographic doing at school13, as
closely as stated by Dewey.
Time jumps between the photo in the past and in present time take place by what I call the
Time Machine
, where I introduce some relevant facts concerning the photo, with their
14
interpretation by the students not only from reading but also from the own photographic
structure. I compare a brief history of photography with the project developed at the
school, named Sensitive maps: world's reading routes through photographic images.
I present here the Time Machine of photography, understanding it both as a possibility of
travel to the past and the photographic equipment's own transformation undergone along
its evolution, which also evidence implacability of time. It is part
15
of my Mastership essay
of same project title, summarizing some actions performed at the school, demonstrating
that they effectively contributed to the students' developing a new relationship with the
photographic image.
The time machine
Brief history of photography
Century V a.C.
Darkroom
Some people assign its conception to
Chinese Mo Tzu, in century V a.C., other,
to the Greek philosopher Aristoteles (384322 a.C.), who would have prepared the
first drawings of the Camera Obscura.
Sensitive maps
2003
Dark boxes
Small boxes, assembled by adolescents,
for viewing how the photographic image is
formed inside the camera.
Camera Obscura, 1545
Kind of room or box, with a hole at one
side, projected inside it the light reflected by
the object outside, reversed. In the century
XIV its utilization was already advised, as
ancillary device for drawing or painting.
1568
A small hole for ensuring sharp image
When it had a very small hole, the camera
obscura generated a sharp, however
darker, image.
Dark little boxes made by the students
2003
Needle hole picture
Students take shots with a camera made of
an empty can of powder milk, where a
small hole made by needle ensures a
perfectly sharp image.
The size of the hole ensures sharp image
It was the Venetian Danielo Barbaro the
first to suggest, in 1568, in its book "The
practice of Perspective", that by varying the
hole's diameter, the image became
sharper.
Later on, the image sharpness issue was
solved by the use of lenses.
1977
Chemical paint; chemigram
The Hommage a Muybridge chemigram, of
the Belgian photographer Pierre Cordier,
evidences how the photographic paper is
photo-sensitive, where, exposed to light, it
forms a latent image, which will only appear
upon its development. Here takes place
paint with the development chemical, under
dim light, followed by interrupting and fixing
baths.
Needle hole photographic cameras
2001
Chemigram
Students make at school their first attempts
of compositions by the chemigram
technique.
Homage à Muybridge
Pierre Cordier
1830 decennium
An English noble proceeds inventing other
photographic processes
Willian Henry Fox Talbot, descendant of an
English noble family, developed a
technique whereby, upon sensitizing the
paper, it was placed in contact with objects
such as leaves, feathers or lace, obtaining
their white silhouettes against blackened
background, after development.
Chemigram
Titleless
2003
Photograms by students
Images made by the contact of various
objects on photographic paper, their
exposures at the light of the amplifier, and
subsequent development, performed at the
school's black-and-white photographic lab.
Students' photogram
Image made by Fox Talbot
1830
The era of portraits
Josef
Petzval,
an
Hungarian
mathematician, invented a new objective,
with double lenses, which allowed a drastic
reduction
in
exposure
time,
thus
contributing to the popularization of
photography within the new ascending
social class, the middle class, who was
eager for its own pictures following the lines
of noble class ones, made until then by
painters and, therefore, more expensive.
2003
Self-portraits
By students, made in black-and-white,
show the (self)images of each of them.
Student's self-portrait
Profile of young woman, portrait by Gaspar Felix
Tournachon, the Nadar, the most famous portrayer during
the peak of this type of image (1845-90)
1832
The discovery of photography in Brazil
The Frenchman Antoine Hercules Romuald
Florence, settled in Brazil at São Carlos
Village, currently Campinas, in 1830
invented his own printing method, which he
named Polygraphie.
2002
Assembly of black-and-white (b&w) lab
A b&w photographic lab is implemented at
Emef CEL. Romão Gomes, representing
new possibilities for students expressing
themselves by picture's language.
School's photographic lab
Printing desk used for Polygraphie
While searching other printing and
reproduction systems, he created, in 1832,
a process through sunlight, which he
named Photographie.
1888
Photography becomes definitely popular
George Eastman, North-American, founds
Kodak, launching small photographic
cameras providing up to 100 exposures.
However, the greatest differential was the
provision of development services as well,
whereby the customer forwarded the
camera to the factory, receiving it back
reloaded, in addition to the enlarged copies
of the photos on cardboard, all at a costeffective price. The company's slogan was
"you push the button, we do the rest."
2003
Pictures made by students
In black-and-white, 35 mm film, one of the
most popular among amateurs.
Picture made by adolescent
"You push the button, we do the rest".
Kodak further improved the system,
creating the celluloid film, which is cheaper
and more practical. At this point, modern
photography started.
1900-1925
Traveling around the world by post cards
Considered as the golden age of post
cards, the start of century XX represented
the proliferation of this mean of expression
and written communication, appearing as a
new possibility of the world's visual
knowledge, even if by excerpts.
2003
Cards interchange benefits writing and
viewing
While sending post cards to the teacher,
students performed writing exercises,
however, perceived the aesthetic excerpt
offered by the cards, reflecting about the
photographer's selection, the landscapes
displayed, each city's angle offered to sight,
mainly of tourists.
Millions of post cards circulated worldwide and were
collected, directing sights and perspectives
Post cards sent by students
As of the 1890 decennium
The photographic image becomes popular
in publicity as well
Early in century XX, publicity, with massive
utilization of images and other expressive
ways, generates an extreme displacement
from public sphere to the individual
consumer, creating new patterns that
shape behaviours and thoughts, besides
temporary new customs, as a typical
product of the cultural industry.
2003
Analysis of advertising announcements
Students, critically analyzing magazine or
newspaper
advertising
containing
photographic images, seek to identify
patterns of behaviour and ideologies
imposed by manufacturers and advertisers,
in an exercise for effectively developing
citizens.
Photography in publicity, creating behaviours and values
1949
Contamination between languages
The girl of the shoes, by Geraldo de Barros,
provided the students with reflections
concerning contamination between the
photography language and the other, such
as paint, sculpture, etc., which always
occurred along photography's history,
however, more evident as of postmodernity, creating new meanings and
using the photographic image.
Exercise of critical analysis of advertising announcements
2003
Students contaminate their pictures
Hybridizing
the picture with other
languages, mainly with paint, the students
create their own contaminated images of
attempts and desires.
Contaminated image, made by adolescents
A menina do sapato
Geraldo de Barros
This course, transiting in time (of photography), demonstrates that, with simple actions, but
providing wide results, which may be performed at the school 16, it is possible
to compare, in this Time Machine, the photography and its history to the
proposed aesthetic challenges, [which] allowed the students' observing the
various forms and uses of photography along the time and contributed to
changing their concepts about the photographic image.
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1
Master of Arts, in Visual Arts focus area, by the Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" (UNESP).
Expert on Communication and Arts, by the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie; photographer; art educator; effective
art teacher in São Paulo's municipal network; coordinates, in Internet, the discussion list Arte-Educar concerning art and
its teaching; researcher of the GP Mediação Arte/Cultura/Público of Unesp and the NP Fotografia, Comunicação e
Cultura, of Intercom.
[email protected]
2
FLUSSER, Vilém. Filosofia da caixa preta: ensaios para uma futura filosofia da fotografia. Rio de Janeiro: Relume
Dumará, 2002. P. 37.
3
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2005. P.46.
4
PARSONS, Michael J. Mudando direções na arte-educação contemporânea. Speech given at the V Meeting:
Compreender a Arte: um ato de cognição verbal e visual. A compreensão e o prazer da arte. Sesc Vila Mariana,
August/1998. Available at <http://www.sescsp.com.br/sesc/hotsites/arte/text_5.htm>. Accessed Jan. 1st, 2006.
5
MARTINS, Mirian Celeste; PICOSQUE, Gisa; GUERRA, M. Terezinha Telles. A língua do mundo: poetizar, fruir e
conhecer arte. São Paulo: FTD, 1998.
6
VERGARA, Luiz Guilherme. Curadorias educativas: a consciência do olhar: percepção imaginativa: perspectiva
fenomenológica aplicadas à experiência estética. In Annals of ANPAP's Congress. São Paulo: 1996.
7
OTT, Robert William. Ensinando crítica nos museus. In BARBOSA, Ana Mae. Arte-educação: leitura no subsolo. São
Paulo: Cortez, 1997. P. 111-139.
8
DEWEY, John. A Arte como experiência. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1980. (Os Pensadores Coll.).
9
ECO, Umberto. Obra aberta: forma e indeterminação nas poéticas contemporâneas. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2001.
10
SCHULTZE, Ana Maria. Mapas sensíveis: percursos de leituras do mundo através de imagens fotográficas. Instituto de
Artes da Unesp. São Paulo: 2003. Mastership essay.
11
KOSSOY, ditto.
12
DEWEY, John. A arte como experiência. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1980. (Os Pensadores Coll.). P. 100.
13
SCHULTZE, Ana Maria. Mapas sensíveis: percursos de leituras do mundo através de imagens fotográficas. Instituto de
Artes da Unesp. São Paulo: 2003. Mastership essay. P. 64.
14
SCHULTZE, 2003. P. 72.
15
SCHULTZE, 2003. Ditto.
16
SCHULTZE, 2003. P. 78.