Self-portraiture and portraiture in the dialogic moment

Sobers, Shawn

Abstract

This presentation will be an autoethnographic exploration of personal and public approaches to memory, reparation and reconciliation within implicit gendered contexts. Discussed will be personal art works ranging from my confessional works, activist pieces and images of self-exploration, through to more outward facing projects from my work exploring gender, identity and resilience, all works in different ways addressing the notion of maleness as other. Drawing on ideas by Franz Fanon (1963) and Paulo Freire (1972), my personal works draw on a cultural memory using the self as a dialogic form of language for empathy and projection as a form of wrestling with social events. Public outward facing projects discussed sees arts as a methodology of visual communication, with representation as the central concern for the adopted approaches, in one example as a form of distancing identity towards a generalised narrative, in another example as a form of making the identity of the individual as the central message. The presentation will argue of the empowerment and transformative tendencies of the arts positioning the ‘final’ art work as a process of the dialogic moment.


References
Fanon, F. (1963), The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Books, UK
Freire, P. (1972), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin Books, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Gender Recalled
• Start Date: Jun 30, 2015
• End Date: Jun 30, 2015
• Publication Date: Jun 30, 2015
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: gender, social justice, self-portraiture, portraiture, activism, community media, anthropology
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/832378
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Gender Recalled