picture books
J. Staub: A instrucção da creança / J. Staub’s Bilderbuch, vol. 1
J. Staub: A instrucção da creança / J. Staub’s Bilderbuch, vol. 2
J. Staub: A instrucção da creança / J. Staub’s Bilderbuch, vol. 3
J. Staub: J. Staub’s Bilderbuch, vol. 4
U. Kolkbrunner: J. Staub’s Bilderbuch, vol. 5
U. Kolkbrunner: J. Staub’s Bilderbuch, vol. 6
É muito difícil conseguir se posicionar ou emitir uma opinião enquanto emigrante em um país colonizador. Com esta oficina me senti livre para fazê-lo. Todas as imagens contém assuntos “civilizatórios”, o que mexeu muito com meu interior. E estar livre para opnar e apresentar pontos de vista anti-colonizador foi muito importante para realização dos exercícios. // Lina de Albuquerque
Viver é político. As escolhas e intervenções que faço e fiz neste workshop são políticas. Um olhar cuidado, feminista e anti-especista. Partindo sempre do meu lugar de fala, mulher branca cis portuguesa vega europeia de classe média. Vontade de reescrever narrativas. Fora daqui. No arquivo-cidade. // Ana Mafalda Pereira
I'm a queer trans man, who is white, able-bodied and neurodivergent. I tried to leave a piece of myself in the works that I did - either by making them through a queer lens or by showing my reverence of nature. // Sebastião
I proposed to study the cover image of J. Staub’s picture book series through embodied and visual analysis as well as a small creation process. This image is particularly interesting as it is in itself a layered reflection of “looking” in educational settings. I proposed this exercise as studying of the “program” through reenacting that image (see also “how this archive is worked”). These activations were developed in groups of 3 to 5 people and partly the constellations changed as the process was continued on the second workshop day where a different group of participants were present.
As a group, they should create a freeze frame of the image i.e. each person would take a certain posture and then remain still. Together all bodies would create a frozen scene. One person would remain outside of the frame as the viewer helping to create the freeze frame. This exercise is common in theatre education and there are various versions of this. The function of the viewer was not to direct the frame – this would be the group's task – but rather that person could help to create a scene that would visually communicate and I hoped to invite reflexivity about the viewing process into the scenes by making the role of the viewer an obligation.
When creating the freeze frame, I encouraged the participants to try to relax the body and then get into the frozen posture a couple of times as in my experience this “getting in” and “out” of the posture gives a better understanding of it than just being frozen constantly. When in freeze frame, each person, including the viewer, ought to say a word that comes spontaneously to mind: it can be an emotion, a sensation, a thought, a phrase…
After this first phase of experimentation which lasted about half an hour, the groups took a break and I spread out a small desert (this activity took place after lunch) with questions taped to each little desert container. These questions ought to trigger reflections about the image as well as the first experience that the groups had by studying the image not only visually but also through their embodiment of it.
Based on the experience of the freeze frame exercise and their discussion, the task was then to create a little scenario or scene. I suggested a methodology that was not entirely followed but all groups but guided the overall creation:
All persons go back into a freeze frame. One person becomes “unfrozen” and takes on a different person. Then the next person reacts to that movement or change in the scene, unfreezes, refreezes. This goes on until everyone has “moved on”. I invited them to link the movements also speech but only one group implemented a small verbal component.
Three very different scenes and thoughts around the picture were developed by the groups that they showed to each other by the end of the day, including some thoughts about what had driven their creation process. Closing that workshop day, each person wrote down a word or sentence to describe or “score” the scene their group had developed during the day. On the second workshop day, these words and phrases were the kick-off for the groups to create a score for their scene collectively. It was left open to the groups if their scores aimed to speak to their experience as performers, to communicate their idea of the scene or if they even wished the readers/viewers themselves into another round of re-enactment.
