Masterclass with Hoda Afshar: New Documentary Form – the image as evidence
In this workshop, Hoda Afshar will draw on her experience as both a documentary and art photographer, as well as a researcher and teacher to explore questions about the nature and possibilities of documentary image-making today. Reflecting on her own concerns with the communicative and world-making power of art and photographs, Afshar will guide participants through her process of constructing narrative-based work that is both conceptually focused and personal, and which intersects the usual lines between ‘staged’ and documentary photography.
Held over two sessions one week apart, attendees will also be encouraged to produce (or re-mix) their own work in the interim. Afshar will also provide individual advice about developing a visual language that reflects the thematic concern of each student’s work, and above all, about constructing an image series, as opposed to the traditional way of ‘saying everything in one photograph’.
About Hoda Afshar
Hoda Afshar is a visual artist born in Tehran, Iran, now based in Melbourne, Australia. Afshar completed a Bachelor degree in Fine Art Photography in Tehran and began her career as a documentary photographer in 2005. In 2006 she was selected by World Press Photo as one of the top ten young documentary photographers of Iran to attend their Educational Training Program. Since 2007, her work has been widely exhibited both locally and internationally and published online and in print. Afshar is currently a lecturer at Photography Studies College in Melbourne and a PhD candidate at the department of Art at Curtin University. In 2015, Hoda won the National Photographic Portrait Prize.
