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Marzena Abrahamik

Associate Professor, Adjunct

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Bio

MARZENA ABRAHAMIK (b. Poland, grew up in Greece) lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received a MFA in Photography from Yale University and a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from Loyola University. Driven by photography’s ability to change our visual sensibility, her work draws on personal experiences to address the intersection of photography, feminist modes of identification and portraiture. Abrahamik explores historical, social and political themes, with a focus on photography as an objective form of representation.

Exhibitions: Girl Play & A L'ouest, solo exhibitions at Johalla Projects, solo exhibition at The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (Boone, NC) and solo exhibition Gallery of Classic Photography, (Moscow, Russia). Group Exhibitions: Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL), Latitude (Chicago, IL), Whitney Houston Biennial (New York, NY), Silver Eye Center for Photography (Pittsburgh, PA), Weinberg/Newton Gallery, (Chicago, IL), Soccer Club Club (Chicago, IL), Aperture (New York, NY), Johalla Projects (Chicago, IL), Sushi Bar (New York, NY), Art & Design Festival (University of Ulster, United Kingdom), and the International Photography Festival (Tel-Aviv, Israel). Bibliography: Shannon & Girl Play. Abrahamik is the recipient of the John Ferguson Weir Award, PACC, & IAS Artist Project Grant. Collections: The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL), Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Haas Library (New Haven, CT).

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This basic class, required for entry into all other photo classes, introduces contemporary technologies for producing photographic images. This course also introduces seeing, thinking and creating with a critical mind and eye to provide greater understanding of the construction and manipulation of photographic form and meaning. Approaching the medium in its current complex and pluralistic state, students explore a variety of photographic concepts and techniques. While various physical cameras are still in use today the fundamentals of using digital cameras, including manual exposure and lighting are stressed. Eclectic forms of output are explored in order to discover methods of presentation most suited to a particular idea. 'Knowledge of photography is just as important as that of the alphabet. The illiterate of the future will be a person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen.' Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946). This course will address the complex and continual shifting nature of photography; what influences our understanding of how a photograph functions while exploring a diverse array of photographic genres and applications. Assignments will provide technical skills to use cameras, compose images and print digital photographs. Readings, screenings and discussions will provide a framework for critically analyzing the photographs we encounter every day, as well as our own photographs.

Class Number

1801

Credits

3

Description

Students are introduced to using light as a means for creative control. By studying the light around us, we are able to better serve our work through specific choices with regard to existing or ambient light and light augmented by other sources of illumination. Students learn the rudiments of metering, mixing light sources, including the use of on-camera or hand-held electronic flash within existing lighting conditions. This is a practical course that enables students to better control and use light and lighting in their work.

Class Number

1808

Credits

3

Description

This six-hour seminar is a professional practice class for life after graduation, focusing on how each student can build a sustainable practice based on their own strengths and working style. Students create a website, CVs, write grant proposals, artist statements, and statements of purpose, learning the different content and uses of each. Readings on contemporary artists and 'best practices' for editing, exhibition, and installation of artwork will support class work. This course embraces the understanding that developing a sustainable practice outside of school includes building creative community, developing an independent research practice and other activities related to each individual’s work. As such, the highlight of this course will be bi-weekly visits and workshops from a diverse range of working artists, curators, residency staff and others to speak about these opportunities, as well as how to build a fruitful creative life. For example, we will develop strategies for talking about your work that fit your own personal style with a Chicago curator, and present grant materials to a mock panel to get productive feedback. The Junior Seminar is one of four required classes intended to function as a 'spine,' providing guidance and structure for SAIC's open and interdisciplinary curriculum.

Class Number

1857

Credits

3