Stills - Project 2045
Members of the Stills Youth Panel took over Stills Gallery for a week-long research residency to investigate the question: What does photography look like in 2045? Following initial discussions the group decided to approach the project with the research question: ’What do we want photography to look like in 2045?’
As such, youth panel members used this residency to host a series of conversations at Stills between themselves, artists and gallery staff, the outcomes of which were recorded on a mind map on the gallery’s walls. Collaboration and group thinking were at the heart of this project as well as ensuring Youth participants had the agency to themselves imagine the future of photography in Scotland.
Stills Youth Panel took over the Stills Gallery for a week-long research residency 24-28th October, to address the questions related to what we want the future of photography to be and how photography might exist in 2045.
Using the gallery as a focus for thinking to occur through conversations and group discussion, the group turned its walls into a mind map— a shared ideas space. They chose this approach to get an idea of what everyone was thinking and to draw out many questions to discuss, giving everyone a fair chance to speak about their own ideas and questions.
This was helpful in enabling collaborative work to occur, which had been difficult prior to this point due to the constraints of zoom meetings. Amidst their research, the group hosted a series of focused conversations including: a discussion with artist, writer and researcher Crystal Bennes, a reading and discussion with artist, writer and researcher Rowan Lear and a discussion with Stills Gallery director Ben Harman.
Rowan On Value : "You're told your work isn't worth anything unless its got a framework around it, whether that's a piece of funding from someone, or a show in a gallery, or you're selected to be a part of a panel... we all rely on those kinds of authority to grant us that its time to make work.
Can we invent new systems of value where our work has value without it being authorised? Maybe there's different forms of authority, like your peers, your friends, collaborators...".
The mind-map that the group created looked to crystallise photography as an expanded field, a discipline which encompasses an increasingly wide variety of practices, techniques and ideas.
These ideas prompted discussion around recurring themes that came up.
Where is analogue photography and photo developing going in the future in a more environmentally friendly way of developing images?
Where is digital photography and editing of images going - is it environmentally sustainable using power sources? What equipment will be used?
They also spoke about subject matter and how that might change over time, documenting the changes in our climate and journey to a net-zero Scotland?
Reflecting on the mind-map there are several hubs of investigation:
The role that environmental sustainability and ecological approaches will play in photographies futures
The relationship between pre-photographic, photography and the burgeoning field of post-photographic practices (those which sit outside traditional limits of the photography).
What do we need? The support structures which emerging artists/photographers, like ourselves require to sustain and grow our creative practices into the future.
Overarching questions
“We plan an ongoing output of Instagram posts, sound bites from interviews and discussions, to engage the public with our project. We hope to host further events as a result.
Having the opportunity to discuss, plan and share ideas over the course of the week was an experience unlike any other, and a number of people in our group have felt that it has greatly benefited our own practices and research. Having the time to pause, to stop being students, to stop our day jobs, and really think about where we are in Photography, and where we want it to go, has been invaluable. I know that many of us will be hunting for any similar opportunities in the future, though I doubt we will have chance to do something as unique as this again. The themes and issues discussed together, and with our visiting artists, have laid the groundwork for our own practices, seeking to embody the ideals and methodologies that we have authored together.
It has been an intensive education, in theory, ethics, and practice, and has served to lay the groundwork for similar events in the future, hopefully with new cohorts, visitors, and institutions.” (Ryan Yare)