Fashioning Fiction

Catalog description

From the inception of photography, images have served as a means of identification, as seen in mugshots, and in misidentification, as exemplified by Cindy Sherman’s portraits where she adopts the personas of Hollywood B- movie starlets. In this course, we will explore various paradigms of self-transformation through photography. We will study artists who engage in this practice and use their work as prompts for creative exploration. We will look specifically at the work of Hippolyte Bayard, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Julia Margaret Cameron, Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Anna Gaskell, Nicki Lee, Gillian Wearing, and others. The ultimate goal of the course will be to examine the nature of the self, the possibilities of self-reinvention, and the role of the camera as a tool for transformation. The New New Color