Topic 3: AUTHORSHIP and COLLABORATION
Photography, as any creative practice, can be seen as dialogue rather than distinct, individual statements. The idea of ownership of ideas and that one can express a pure, unheard creative sentiment or call is for me flawed. I have arrived at this point, in my creative and non-creative life, informed by the contexts and experiences I have lived and made work through. Considering this, I don’t believe that any of my ideas are unique. I embrace the fact that the work of others, or the experiences I have in other areas of my life percolate into or through my work, and vice versa of course.
More specifically the work of artists, photographers and sculptors feed into how I see my own photography and I aim to be aware of how my work relates to these references. One can see an analogy here with more formal academic research and writing. My work (fig. 1) cites and references those that have gone before or work alongside me. Sometimes these references are obliquely intentional but more often they manifest in my work almost subconsciously.
Fig. 1 Chris Finnegan chair variables [installation documentation] (2006).
Working with others this week has required me to question the singular authority I have over my work. This has been something I am aware of and wish to challenge as I progress through the course. Working with a very enthusiastic, professional and ambitious group reminded me of the dynamics of working as part of a team in other areas of my professional life. It is rare for me to encounter this regarding my creative output. I was encouraged that I brought some of my professional experience to this task and was very happy to let others do the same. We gelled well and produced something I think we should all be proud of, considering the short time we had to do it in (fig. 2). Having the pressure of a deadline spurred me into action here and being accountable to others ensured I got the job done. I hope that I can draw on this in the future.
Fig 2 Chris Finnegan, Andrew Gilbert, Jon Erik Rosenborg and Sue Vaughton Xylophobia mini-project (2022)
Collaboration has begun to take on a new meaning for me, especially in relation to this week’s reading. Azoulay suggests that photography is always engaged in some form of collaboration and sees photography as a collaborative event (Azoulay 2016: 187). Considering this, I can see areas of my photographic practice where there are various degrees of collaborative actions which up to now I had not appreciated.
In Ideas on Public Sculpture (fig. 3), where chanced upon arrangements of street furniture, discarded objects and other municipal waste were documented in situ, a veritable army of unbeknownst collaborators is now revealed. Acknowledging this element of cooperation in my work makes me want to challenge the authorship and control I have over my work and to start seeing my photographic practice as somehow being the documentation of collaborations. This speaks to the pedagog in me as I had been exploring ways to loosen my control over my high school students and to take the ego out of my teaching.
Fig. 3 Chris Finnegan Ideas on Public Sculpture (2012)
Fig. 4 Chris Finnegan note from sketchbook (2020)
I have recently explored collaborating with my sons. Although this was initially done out of necessity to meet a tight deadline, I have begun to appreciate the value of working with my children and how this lines up with wider themes in my work; especially in light of my reflection above. In Recursion (fig. 5) I filmed my children performing all the possible outcomes of a game of Rock Paper Scissors. This hastily shot, and sometimes out of focus video was then edited to create a grid composition of the sequence, each at a delayed interval. Although I aimed for a clinical, functional recording of this choreographed series of actions, the cherubic hands, the out-of-synch timing and the last minute changing of hand gestures lent an aesthetic that I hadn’t intended on. I rushed the edit off to be exhibited, along with an apology for the poor photography. However, watching the work in the resulting exhibition and explaining it to others during an artists’ talk, I became comfortable, if not excited by the variances the outcome had from my initial vision. By working with my children, I had, in what Baldesarri might consider, got in the way of my own good taste (Tucker 2010: 138).
Fig. 5 Chris Finnegan Recursion (2021)
AZOULAY, Ariella. 2016. ‘Photography Consists of Collaboration: Susan Meiselas, Wendy Ewald, and Ariella Azoulay’. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 31(1 91), [online], 187–201. Available at: https://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article/31/1 (91)/187-201/97593 [accessed 10 Feb 2022].
TUCKER, Marcia. ‘John Baldersarri: Pursuing the Unpredictable. 2010. In IVERSEN, Margaret (ed.). Chance. London/Cambridge Mass.: Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 137-9.
