Academy Retrospective - Defining Moments

The Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change was the highlight of 2008 for me. I know: this sounds cheesy so let me elaborate.

It was not just the fact that I met people from all continents and suddenly had sisters and brothers around the world, but it was also the missing link in my work as a Fine Art Photographer.  

Back then, I may not have known that Global Citizenship existed as a term, but I experienced the concept the minute I was part of this international group.  From then on, countries were not a geographic abstraction of politics and economics anymore; they were faces, with names and families. And smiles. And struggles.

Throughout the course of three weeks, it hit me how entwined we are nowadays and how my actions had more than an immediate economic impact on the shop I was buying a pair of shoes at – it meant I was part of a chain that started with my purchases and after passing through big companies and their employees, I was reaching someone in a factory, far away, being exploited. These people may not have had faces in my mind or memory, but I could imagine them; I realised how linked I had been to them since I was born and never “knew”.

Once this clicked in my head, I was able to explain why I make art at all, and why it matters so much to me. Thanks to everyone I met at the Academy and their rewarding words, I also started believing in myself and trusting my visual skills. I used to think I could not really start my career without formal education in Photography but this was the stepping-stone into making it happen as a self-taught photographer.

Reinforcing my skills in Media Literacy during the programme also allowed me to dig deeper into the hidden layers of images and information in general, which helped me both read and express stronger ideas; it enabled me to see the different angles on issues and, most importantly, the viability of dialoguing very intricate, almost opposing ideas for better understanding of others. For me, from that summer on, life stopped being about who was right or wrong, and started being about why we thought the way we thought, and how we could co-exist.

The Academy had such a big impact on me that I returned to the Salzburg Global Seminar as an intern three years later, in 2011, and was offered work after that. Now I live in Salzburg, producing videos and photographic documentation year round during other sessions within the organisation, and will be responsible, alongside Paul Mihailidis, for preparing and planning the Academy in 2012.

This program changed my life and the way I see things, forever.