Research Catalogue

Research Paper of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2024 BA Photography Summary: You don’t see what I see. I don’t see what you see. Eyes as hatches passing through reflections of the world around. Electromagnetic radiation translated into visuals. Interpreted by mental processes in the brain. As a woman who used to work in the corporate world, is a mother and an aspiring photographer, I am interested in the topics of gender equality and feminism, seen as inequality based on power relations that are culturally constructed in society. Regarding these topics, I find mostly written or text-based outings. The nature of the topic results in either stereotype or cliché imagery we see in the media, that are detrimental in acquiring an equal basis for everyone. Using case studies, I analyze photographic work related to the gender inequality and power structures. The theoretical framework applied is from Nicholas Mirzoeff (British-American, 1962), Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at the New York University and is derived from his book ‘An introduction to Visual Culture’ (2023). This theory distinct ‘visualizing’ (what is commonly seen, the ruling power) and ‘visibilizing’ (introducing different perspectives as response to the ruling power). Mirzoeff elaborates on this by comparing the Spanish word for power, ‘poder’, meaning “static, constituted power” with power as ‘potencia’ which according to him has a “dynamic constituent dimension… our power to do, to be affected and to be affected by others.”. To me he connects visualization with exposing what the systemic power wants us to see, while ‘visibilizing’ is exposing the views that are not dictated by that overarching power but that have the freedom to show different perspectives and views. For the case studies I chose ‘The Table of Power I & II’ of Dutch Photographer Jacqueline Hassink (1966-2018) analyzing economic power and role of women in the higher echelons of companies. A work consisting of board rooms photos of the forty largest industrial multinational companies at the time (1994 & 2009, Table of Power I & II respectively). In ‘Female Power Stations: Queen Bees’ (1996-1998) she reflects upon board rooms of female leadership countered against their dining tables at home, all set up to receive guests. A diptych of power (work) vs. traditional qualities (home). I continue with the work ‘Performance Review’ (2020) of American photographer Endia Beal (1985). ‘Performance Review’ is about fitting into traditional corporate culture layered with outward signifiers of difference, navigating the corporate environment based on unconscious biases. We are part of the system, whether we like it or not. Me aiming to trigger a change with photographs is what drives me to be a maker. By not taking things as truth or fixed, by challenging the status quo, and by knowing that there are always different perspectives to look at things. I feel I am challenging the visualization of things, and therefore affect people around me. It’s me creating a ‘potencia’, a dynamic constituent dimension, that fights the ‘poder’; it’s within my power to do and my photographs will enable that.

Schedule, updates and resources for the Working Group Performance and Pedagogy at PSi 29: Assembly, London, UK. Organized by Vanessa Damilola Macaulay, Leigh Anne Howard and Adelheid Mers (coordinator)

onderzoeksproces

The Cloak of Longing has been involved in conference keynote, public and university pastoral occasions. At the heart of my research practice is a desire to liberate capacities of expressivity via a processual use intuitive material vitality. This contingent radical empiricism regards the communication model's need for pre-given therefore-ness as potentially occluding of capacities to work with matter flow – a characteristic of a cosmos of nonhuman agency inside which a performative intra-relational understanding emerges.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 Master Photography & Society In Silenced Womb Petra Kroon ( @fotosvanpetrakroon) examines the age-old taboo on menopause. What does it mean to be systematically silenced for centuries? What effect does it have on how you are represented? How you are treated? And how do you behave? She explores these questions from three perspectives: the medical world, society and photography. She investigates what this in/visibility looks like and analyses what it does to her and to her allies. Since she wants to lift this taboo on menopause, she also makes some suggestions for a different representation.

In general, zoo architecture directs the attention towards the animals. The buildings create ‘frames’ around the animals, as John Berger (1980) states in his 1977 essay ‘Why Look at Animals?’. Following this premise, my work explores visual and psychological aspects of framing, relating to animal housing. Judith Butler (2009) explains how (visual) framings always create meanings and evaluations of what is enclosed within them. Therefore, the representation of animals in human culture affects how we treat animals socio-politically. Zoos generate and communicate ongoing conceptions of zoo animals. Zoo architecture, although often in the background of one’s field of vision, forms an important factor in the construction of these ideas.