Wednesday 27 October 2010, 14.00–17.00

Although much has been written about the lens as a colonial tool, film and other lens-based media remain the media of choice for many contemporary artists and increasingly are also being used as an alternative methodology within the research community.

The seminar will take as its starting point current research carried out in Damascus and Amman by geographer Jessica Jacobs (Royal Holloway, University of London)  around the ERSC funded project ‘Re-branding the Levant’ . Jacobs uses a form of participatory film-making as the key method for her research, with the camera being used to reveal new insights into how we navigate place and the past.

The seminar will additionally bring together a number of artists/practitioners to show work and compare similar forms of experimental film and video practices. It ultimately seeks to address how artists and researchers use lens based practices as creative methodologies, identify where, if at all, similarities may be found between their approaches and to create the space for further discussion and understanding between the two fields.

Damascus-based photographer Hrair Sarkissian will showcase his current photographic projects in Syrian and Armenia.

Artists Brad Butler and Karen Mirza will discuss their multi-layered practice that challenges and interrogates terms such as participation, collaboration, and the social turn. In particular they will present   their ongoing project The Museum of Non Participation, focusing on the first film produced as part of this project, The Exception and the Rule.

Filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi will discuss her film Open Shutters Iraq, which documents a participatory photography project with a group of five women from Iraq.

Tate Britain  Manton Studio
£12 (£8 concessions), booking required