BY STEVE BISSON
Dear readers, here we go with the new issue of MetaData, a collection of interviews with photography educators and editorials about contemporary photography education. MetaData - The data about data - functions as a collection of information about how the future of photographic art is shaped and influenced by the people who teach it, and the contemporary trends in education. Enjoy the reading!!!
Dawn Roe received her MFA in Studio Art from The Illinois State University College of Fine Arts in Normal, IL in 2005 and her BFA in Photography from Marylhurst University in Portland, OR in 2002. She currently divides her time between Asheville, North Carolina and Winter Park, Florida where she serves as Assistant Professor of Art at Rollins College. Dawn’s studio practice involves both the singular and combined use of photographs and digital video.
Dawn Roe, ‘Interior Landscape’ (Wet Patio), 2006
Dawn Roe, ‘From Time To Time’ (Water), 2008
SB: Dawn can you briefly describe your career - how did you get to Rollins College? What was your first teaching experience? What directed you towards a teaching career?
DR: «My career has developed very organically, but I would not say that I ever had a direct path in mind, necessarily. My initial experience as an undergraduate student was short-lived and I didn’t seriously return to school until my late twenties. I was thirty years old when I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Marylhurst University in Oregon. I was a bit older than most undergraduates at the time of my graduation, so I went straight on to graduate school to pursue my MFA degree. My early work had a strong documentary emphasis, and I was intrigued by the Rural Documentary Project at Illinois State University – which is initially what brought me there. As often happens in graduate school, my work shifted somewhat dramatically throughout my time there. Fortunately the program was interdisciplinary, and I was able to negotiate these changes through conversation and critique with faculty and peers teaching and working in a variety of media – this had an enormous impact on my practice as I began to consider my work within a contemporary art context as well as from within specifically photographic traditions».
Dawn Roe, ‘This Is Nowhere’ (#1), 2009
«As to the question of teaching, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to teach my own introductory photography courses beginning my first year of graduate school. As the program ran for 3 years, I had the opportunity to teach for 5 semesters, and also gained experience serving as a Teaching Assistant for history of photography courses. Immediately upon completing my MFA, I served as a one-year sabbatical replacement for one of my thesis committee members who had received just received a Guggenheim (perfect timing), and subsequently went on to teach as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin. The faculty at Beloit was incredibly supportive as I searched for a more permanent position, which I was ultimately offered at Rollins College in Florida».
Dawn Roe, ‘This Is Nowhere’ (#?), 2009
«Oddly, it never occurred to me that I might teach until I was asked that first semester in graduate school. My reason for going on to graduate school was to continue developing my work, and to have the opportunity to work with a new group of faculty. However, I very quickly realized how natural it felt to be in the classroom and have since come to appreciate the benefits of being an academic, working artist. These benefits go far beyond earning an income to support the work. Perhaps more importantly, I value my interactions with the students who continue to push my thinking and encourage me to re-assess my positions on a regular basis».
Dawn Roe, ‘I-55 Back/Fort’ (After Michael Snow), 2010
SB: You divide your time between the Assistant Professor and your personal artistic research. How do you manage these different paths and related points of view? And how is it possible to share these aspects of artistic practice in teaching and with student careers?
«This is a difficult area to negotiate, absolutely. So many working artists struggle to find a balance between their artwork (which often is not their primary source of income) and other obligations. In my case, I feel as though I benefit from the strong overlap between my role as a professor and as an artist. As I began to discuss above, the role of an academic is naturally suited to that of a working artist. In both areas, we have an obligation to consistently challenge our preconceived notions related to our disciplines and our practice. Without the pressure of teaching a new group of students each semester, I’m not sure that I would have the same understanding of my work, and the work of my students. I emphasize a nuanced and careful consideration of all aspects of the work in my classroom, and bring that philosophy into my own studio as well».
Diego Pinedo, ‘Untitled’, 2010
«I also find it useful to bring real world examples into the classroom. When I’m preparing work for an exhibition, it’s helpful to discuss my process with students so they get an understanding of being a working artist. I try to discuss all aspects with them – the process in terms of how the work was made and/or conceptualized, the editing and refinement of the work both in terms of selecting and sequencing imagery as well as the difference between work proofs and final prints (and rough cuts and final edits when discussing time-based works), writing and talking about your work, preparing the work for shipping, etc. Of course, the practical aspects of finding time for the work amidst the demands of a full-time teaching position are part of this as well. I tend to do large amounts of work in the summer months and during the winter break (collecting imagery and source material) and generally work on editing and refining that work throughout the school year. That’s a system that has worked for me over the last several years, and that I hope to continue».
Taylor Clark, ‘Untitled’, 2011
SB: In your personal work you combine the use of photography and video. How the development of new audiovisual media and technologies influence teaching and how these issues are addressed by the photography programme at Rollins College?
«It’s interesting because I avoided working with digital materials for as long as I could, simply because they were unfamiliar to me for the most part, and I enjoyed the actuality of pieces and reels of film (my early work with the moving image began at the Northwest Film Center in Portland, Oregon where I learned to shoot and edit both Super 8 and 16mm film). In graduate school I began working with digital video, which led to the purchase of a fancy new computer with lots of processing power. I understood that I was going to have to learn more about digital photography in order to teach it (as this was going to be inevitable), and that my own practice was also going to shift as I was soon no longer going to have access to an analog, color printer.
Eric Short, ‘Untitled’, 2010
At Rollins, I continue to teach both darkroom and digital photography although the only darkroom course is Photo I. I maintain that learning in the darkroom provides a solid foundation of the fundamental aspects of photography that are then applied to software within the digital darkroom. I feel as though I still approach the content the same way with digital as with analog, but the new technologies allow for certain extensions such as larger prints, easier manipulations of imagery from basic to advanced, and quicker turnaround time in some cases, at least for an initial review of work. Having the work digitized also makes it easier to share with peers around the country and the world through great sites such as The Photography and Video Exchange and others.
Christian Bromley, ‘Untitled’, 2010
This kind of sharing is important at Rollins as we do not have a dedicated photography program, rather we offer a BA in Studio Art, which gives students the opportunity to work interdisciplinary throughout their time in the program. Their senior year consists of two capstone courses helping them to prepare for their senior exhibition, and during this time students may decide to focus on photography or other lens-based media specifically. This is where access to digital technologies has become very important. Students leaving any undergraduate program today will be at a major disadvantage if they do not have at least a limited, introductory understanding of digital media. Often, it is a direct result of initial exposure to software and devices particular to these media that leads students to think critically about how these media can contribute to and/or inform their practice».
Anne Patrick, ‘Kind of Like Drowning’, 2011, 3-Channel HD Video Still
SB: The nature and its perception is a recurring theme through your works. How does it relate to your artistic belief? What are the readings or other schoolings, even non-academic, to which you refer or that have provided you with suggestions in your observation, interpretation and creative process. How in your opinion we can facilitate in today’s visual society a more consciuos, if not critical, approch to images?
«I found myself thinking about just these things as I woke up this morning and looked out the window. I’m currently at an artist’s residency called The Hambidge Center, which is in the mountains on the border of Georgia and North Carolina. So, it’s early December and I’m in a remote cabin in the woods, and upon waking I gazed outside and noticed that the Rhododendron leaves were drooping from the cold and looked like hanging bats, which then led me to see the sun just beginning to come up from behind the mountains, illuminating the sticklike bare trees against the sky. Now, I have no mystical attachment to the land and don’t consider myself any sort of “back to the nature” kind of girl, which makes it all the more peculiar that I have been fixating on the landscape as subject matter for quite a few years now. Because I have always done a lot of driving along highways – spending my early years between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, meandering around the country as a derelict teenager, commuting from Chicago to central Illinois and then Wisconsin, and most recently traveling regularly between Florida and North Carolina – I’ve been endlessly fascinated at how acutely perception can be activated through the simple act of looking out a window and into the world beyond it. Of course there has always been a soundtrack of sorts to these travels and music has played a large role in leading me to equate certain sensibilities with particular perceptions. And, it can be quite varied as the evocation provoked by a stand of trees set to the sounds of Slayer is pretty counter to, say, Sam Cooke – but the overlap is pretty great as well».
Christian Bromley, ‘Untitled’, 2010
«But in my work, something admittedly started to shift once I began to think more deeply about landscape specifically. Going back to my waking moment this morning, I also realized how perfectly this cabin felt like the house in the woods in Tarkovsky’s film, The Mirror. Looking back over the last decade and thinking about what I’ve seen or read and gone back to time and again – it becomes perfectly clear that I should be out in the landscape. After seeing The Mirror for the first time, I never looked at trees the same way again. And, in graduate school I was introduced to Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, which then led me to read more about phenomenology with Merleau-Ponty specifically, and I also became interested in Bergson’s theories of memory around that time. In 2007 I read a book that I think led directly to my choice to combine still photography and video, which was The Emergence of Cinematic Time, by Mary Anne Doane. And, more recently I was led to Virginia Woolf’s novels The Waves and To The Lighthouse, which really helped me to consider landscape as metaphor. And so does Proust – who I’m slogging my way though right now, with determination (it’s worth it, talk about essential glimpses here and there)».
Margaret Rowland, ‘Boots’, 2011
«I could rattle on forever, but I think what’s maybe most important is to sort out for yourself, what do you gaze at, what stops you, what do you pay attention to – what gives you that kind of punched in the gut feeling, if only for a moment. And then, pay attention to that moment. Slow down, and pay attention to that moment. This I think is what is missing sometimes in a contemporary consideration of images. In a recent conversation about some of these things, my partner emphasized that; life is long – if you’re fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate. This idea that everything must be grasped with some sort of immediacy is absolutely counter to any sort of critical reflection, especially with regard to images. Like memories, images are in a constant state of flux as they flit around our periphery in endless and unpredictable patterns. It’s up to us to grab a few out of the pile every once in a while and collect them, hold on to them for a bit and have a nice long look».
Dawn Roe, ‘Goldfield Study, Mt. Alexander’ (Tree and Smoke) – Installation View, 2011
© All copyright remains with photographer Dawn Roe