Wednesday 15 February 2012

Deadline reminder for the Roger Ballen workshop in Fez, Morocco

With little over two weeks left to apply for the next 1000 Words Workshop with Roger Ballen in Fez, Morocco (5-9 May 2012), we thought we would bring you up to date with some recent news.

The workshop has managed to attract notable press here on The Daily Telegraph online and here at GUP Magazine, while Roger Ballen has been busy directing his first music video, the oddly engrossing, I Fink U Freeky for Die Antwoord to widespread critical acclaim, receiving more than 1 million viewers on Youtube in less than 24 hours. At the same time, he has been working towards the first major UK exhibition of his photography this spring, at Manchester Art Gallery which will explore three decades of Ballen's career, and be on show from March 30 until May 13. New, previously-unseen work will also be showcased in the forthcoming issue of 1000 Words - Uncertainty - out 3 March.

If you are considering applying but are wondering if this opportunity is really for you, have a read of the testimonial from a previous workshop participant below to get an idea of what you can expect. Whether it be fresh approach to your photography or a desire for new experiences, it's time to challenge conventional thinking and shake things up. With a strong onus on image-making, photographers who have attended our workshops in the past have done so with great success, and, in the process, produced new bodies of work that have since been featured in magazines such as The British Journal of Photography, released in the form of books with publishers including Max Strom or gained them representation from the prestigious Prospekt agency to name just a few.

Here is a Saskia Vredeveld film titled Memento Mori from 2005 about the weird and wonderful world of Roger Ballen that should get those grey cells ticking.




"The workshop in Fez was a mind shaking experience, and for me that was just what I needed! Antoine's repeated question to me was, "but what do you want?" What a simple question it may seem but to truly honestly answer this was one of the hardest things. Antoine struggled with me daily to be truthful to the process of shooting and to my work. Trying to do this as a white woman in a muslim foreign country seemed scary at first. But soon enough this fear pushed me to go farther than I had before. To take more risks and be more bold. In the end, I had allowed myself to befriend men and women who were at first just strangers on the street. My once beautiful but safely intimate portraiture became more real for me, evoking not only the fear of letting myself leap in a strange place but in the process of doing so, being able to see so much more in others.

The workshop venue was such a treat and incredible place to be able to go to every day. A sanctuary to rest and to edit and collect your thoughts. A place to run into your fellow work shoppers and bounce around ideas. The food was more than I had expected and in fact pretty much the best food I ate in Morocco in my three weeks travel. Tim and Michael were so on top of the workshop; they were there managing every detail from accommodations, food, coordinating the class meetings, running film to labs, scanning, and even just being sweet and kind pals to talk with about your day or have a beer with and brainstorm about your project.

All in all, this workshop could not have been better and I feel so lucky to have had such an opportunity. Antoine's phenomenal out of the box thinking and honesty is one of a kind. 1000 Words' workshops fall into the 'do not miss this' category!” Katie White

Click here to apply. The deadline for submissions is 1 March 2012.