From March 26 to April 4 Residencia en la Tierra held the “Spring Break Photo Feast” event, a series of workshops directed towards the study of photography and the photographic process. The workshops were led by Álvaro Moreno, Guillermo Santos, Adriana Arenas, Daniel Santiago and María Isabel Rueda. Over the course of two weeks, individuals from different parts of the country gathered at the Residence to discuss, learn and share photographs, observations and results. The themes included in the workshops were the following:

Álvaro Moreno: Situationism, dérive as a medium, the use of causality to map journeys. Álvaro also spoke about the need of becoming aware of the possibilities offered by the landscape to approach it through alternative perspectives. Accordingly, he proposed an exercise focused on interventions within nature, inspired by images by Andy Gorthworthy.

Adriana Arenas: Famous spirals, the Spiral Jetty, a video of an active spiral by Duchamp and others. Photos by Tillmans, Eliafur Eliason and Fernel Franco; quantum physics images. Her presentation ended with the profound question that unites us all as human beings – WHO AM I?

Guillermo Santos: Large-format photography, immersion within nature, references, large-format photographic laboratory process, enlargements, contacts.

Daniel Santiago: History of portraits and self-portraits, its uses in different historical periods, examples of portraits and self-portraits that do not use faces to show the figures depicted. How to create portraits using objects, reflections and metaphors.

Maria Isabel Rueda: “When you change the way you observe things, the things you observe change”. Focus and the absence of focus as a means to observe from the periphery. Maria Isabel spoke of the possibility of building a future through the construction of images and proposed an exercise that originated in the following reflection: “If I can create a reality via photography, what reality do I want to create?”

 Approximately 30 people participated in the event which, more than a simple encounter with photography, was a life experience and a communion with the other residents.