Photography

Surrealism originated as a philosophical, literary and artistic movement in France in the late 1910s. It was strongly influenced by psychoanalytical theory – in particular, Sigmund Freud’s ideas about free association and dream imagery. Embracing chance, randomness and the unexpected, surrealist writers and artists thought that reason obstructed access to the imagination. They devised techniques such as automatic writing, drawing games and trance-like states to unblock the flow of creativity and develop spiritual awareness.

Photography’s connection with surrealism lies in its ability to represent the material world in strange and abstract ways. Surrealist photographer Man Ray used double exposure, solarisation and reversed tonality to disturb the viewer’s recognition of things and to suggest the overlapping of dream and reality.

Photographers continue to work in a surrealist aesthetic. In the work of Edmund Kesting, Werner Rohde, Pat Brassington, Destiny Deacon and Francesca Woodman, bodies and spaces are depicted in ways that make them strange and haunting, and ordinary objects are made to seem sinister and extraordinary. Mari Mahr, on the other hand, evokes a dream-like narrative composed of real and imagined memories.

Select a number of ordinary objects from your immediate environment. Photograph these in a variety of contexts to create a series of strange and haunting images. Consider elements such as composition, lighting, scale, contrast and focus.

How did it feel and look? Think about how dreams differ from real life and memory. Are there similarities? Create an artwork based on your dream images. Present your work to the class.

What techniques did surrealist photographers use to break old habits of seeing? Experiment with some of these techniques and compare your work to examples from the Gallery’s photography collection.

Create a photographic body of work using chance, randomness and the unexpected as a theme. Try to imagine that you are seeing the world for the first time. Present your photographs to the class and discuss the challenges you faced as well as where you thought you were successful.