Making Light Work
4th November 1995 - The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent
This conference was an opportunity to explore issues which concern women involved with photography at the end of the twentieth century. What do we want to do with images? What do we want images to do for us? How, as image makers or image consumers, do we claim the future? The event is organised around three areas of activity:
LECTURES
Raising issues, to set the agenda for discussion. Themes have been chosen to reflect concerns which IRIS has identified as critical in terms of the preoccupations of many women photographers and of the dichotomy which characterises anxieties/excitement around new imaging technologies.
SEMINARS
Offer the chance to discuss, with speakers, some of the questions arising from the lectures. Delegates may nominate topics in advance, and we will attempt to cover as many of these as possible.
PORTFOLIO SHARING SESSIONS
Involving small groups of delegates, chaired by two members of the conference team, showing images and receiving feedback in a constructively critical atmosphere.
SPEAKERS
Naomi Salaman
An artist producing photographic based exhibitions and installations. She is the curator of What She Wants, a touring exhibition of women artists' photographic images of men, and editor of a publication of the same name. Naomi also lectures and has talked and written widely around sexuality and related imagery.
Caroline Smith
Assistant Editor of Women's Art Magazine and Contributing Editor (New Media) for Creative Camera. She contributes to photography magazines in Britain and Europe and guest lectures on photography courses across Britain.
Joan Solomon
Educationalist, photographer and writer. She is a pioneer of multicultural books for children and works throughout Great Britain under the aegis of the Writers in Schools Scheme. She has designed (in collaboration with Jo Spence) workshops which run on the theme of "Autobiography and Contextualising the Self through Photography and Writing. Co-authored (with Jo Spence) What Can A Woman Do With A Camera? , which was published in June 1995.
Rhonda Wilson
Photographer, writer and director of Seeing The Light , a national agency specialising in working with image makers around confidence building and business skills. She is a lecturer in photography at the Nottingham Trent University, author of "The Photographers' Guide to Enterprise", was a Director of Ten.8 Photopaperback and partner in Poseurs - The Image Authority, with Ming de Nasty. She is a Reiki healer.
