WEBVTT 00:04.000 --> 00:09.200 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Hello everyone. Thank you for being here today. My name is Anna Gonzalez Suero. 00:09.200 --> 00:14.340 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% My areas of interest include artistic research, feminist theories of the body, and the 00:14.340 --> 00:22.520 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% field of autoethnography. I call this presentation On Teaching Artistic Autoethnography in Germany. 00:22.520 --> 00:28.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The package with the book arrived on an autumn day, and I was very excited. I placed the 00:28.240 --> 00:34.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% package on my kitchen table and covered it with leaves I had collected the day before. 00:34.280 --> 00:39.640 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Then I waited. I later removed the leaves from the package to open it, and there was 00:39.640 --> 00:48.120 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% the book. I could finally hold my book in my hands. The title is An Artistic Autoethnography 00:48.120 --> 00:54.480 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% on the Public Fetus. Feminist Perspectives. The book presents key findings from my PhD research 00:54.480 --> 01:00.800 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% on the use of gynecological ultrasound, preconception health, and the visual politics of 01:00.800 --> 01:08.800 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% reproductive rights. The stories in the book connect art with feminist science studies 01:08.800 --> 01:14.800 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% dealing with the construction of the fetus and motherhood from a historical perspective. 01:14.800 --> 01:22.600 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% It engages with questions around artistic identity, philosophies of Gestalt and visual perception, 01:22.600 --> 01:31.480 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% and with theories of liminality and hybridity. Holding the book in my hand, I opened it, 01:31.480 --> 01:41.760 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I looked through it, I closed it again, and I opened it again. In the book, I reflect 01:41.760 --> 01:49.160 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% on my artistic work. I used the autoethnographic methods of introspection and emotional recall 01:49.240 --> 01:54.880 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% to critically reflect on my artistic work with the iconic image of the fetus. 01:54.880 --> 02:01.800 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Fetus images were once rare, but this changed drastically in the 1960s when photographic-like images 02:01.800 --> 02:09.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% of the fetus began to appear in popular media. Highly aestheticized images that visually 02:09.280 --> 02:17.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% represent the fetus in the foreground disconnected from the pregnant individual. The way in which 02:17.080 --> 02:24.520 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% the visually isolated fetus became a cultural pop icon, how the image has been used beyond 02:24.520 --> 02:31.160 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% the clinical context to commodify pregnancy and to serve political agendas has made possible 02:31.160 --> 02:39.960 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% what is known in feminist scholarship as the public fetus. For almost 15 years, I created 02:39.960 --> 02:46.440 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% artistic variations of the iconic fetus using a variety of materials like paper and wood. 02:48.040 --> 02:54.920 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% At the time when these pictures were taken and when I was still working with this iconic form, 02:55.640 --> 03:02.200 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I had not yet engaged with feminist histories and theories of the public fetus. I simply started 03:02.760 --> 03:09.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% working with this massively reproduced media icon without connecting it to my personal 03:09.240 --> 03:15.320 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% experiences, my cultural background, and without dealing with the political dimensions of the 03:15.320 --> 03:23.640 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% image and its problematic history. I had made them colorful, enlarged them many times their 03:23.640 --> 03:31.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% original size, carried them across rooms, and transported them across cities. To be framed 03:31.240 --> 03:36.520 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% and displayed in art galleries where, when asked about the meanings of my artistic fetus forms, 03:36.520 --> 03:39.480 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I struggled to tell others what the work was getting at. 03:42.360 --> 03:50.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Eventually, in 2015, I got stuck with my artistic practice. After many years of working with these 03:50.280 --> 03:56.680 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% forms, I could not work with them anymore. And as you can see here, which shows part of my PhD 03:56.680 --> 04:03.560 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% annual progress report dated from 2018, the reviewers were concerned about the pace of my 04:03.640 --> 04:07.880 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% artistic research progress. The additional comment reads, 04:07.880 --> 04:14.120 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% training in autoethnography, a methodology I had not heard of before. They were right. 04:15.160 --> 04:22.120 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Autoethnography was for me the key to understand that my artistic block was not a personal failure. 04:23.800 --> 04:31.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% My artistic block was deeply rooted in the ways in which modern, liberalist, western science, 04:31.080 --> 04:33.880 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% medicine, and technology define gender as a binary. 04:37.080 --> 04:42.440 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% And I took my autoethnographic research as a starting point to talk about feminist issues. 04:43.480 --> 04:47.160 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% And later, I went on to get my story published as a book. 04:51.880 --> 04:56.680 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% After telling you a little bit about how I came to autoethnography during my PhD journey, 04:57.560 --> 05:04.520 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I want to talk about teaching autoethnography to art students. I had the opportunity to teach 05:04.520 --> 05:10.200 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% autoethnography to students from the Faculty of Art and Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar 05:10.760 --> 05:17.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% in the summer semester of 2024. The seminar was called Practicing Autoethnography as an 05:17.240 --> 05:24.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Artistic Research Tool. And in the seminar, there were 16 students. Only a few of them 05:24.280 --> 05:29.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% had heard of autoethnography. Most of them had not explored it in practice. 05:31.160 --> 05:35.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The sessions were a mixture of discussion and practical writing exercises. 05:35.880 --> 05:41.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% A lot was covered in a short period of time. And I was curious to see if autoethnography 05:41.240 --> 05:43.960 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% could be learned and practiced in such a short time. 05:45.800 --> 05:50.120 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% To contextualize the seminar, here's an overview of my postdoc project. 05:50.840 --> 05:55.800 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The title is Storing Artistic Research Using Methods of Autoethnography. 05:57.320 --> 06:03.400 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I'm trying to understand the relationship between artistic research and autoethnography 06:03.400 --> 06:09.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% in the particular context of Germany. What makes researching the situation of 06:09.080 --> 06:15.720 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% autoethnography in Germany so exciting is that the methodology is much less established in 06:15.720 --> 06:23.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% this context than in English-speaking countries. The seminar on practicing autoethnography as an 06:23.080 --> 06:28.120 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% artistic research tool was one part of the larger project I'm currently working on. 06:30.440 --> 06:35.880 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The second part is a literature review of explicitly autoethnographic texts by researchers 06:35.880 --> 06:42.440 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% affiliated to universities in Germany over the past two decades. Like I said, little is known 06:42.440 --> 06:48.040 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% about the key features that characterize German language autoethnography. And with my literature 06:48.040 --> 06:57.480 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% review, I aim to make these more accessible to English speakers. The third part is an interview 06:57.480 --> 07:04.200 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% study with researchers from different disciplines at German universities about their personal and 07:04.200 --> 07:14.040 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% professional experiences with autoethnography. Here you can see a description of the assignment 07:14.040 --> 07:20.440 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I gave the seminar participants. I asked them to choose a past artistic project that they were 07:20.440 --> 07:27.880 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% interested in investigating from an autoethnographic perspective. In what follows, I present excerpts 07:27.880 --> 07:34.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% from autoethnographic stories of two seminar participants who gave me permission to share them here. 07:34.280 --> 07:42.920 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The first excerpt is from an autoethnographic story titled Babulya by Polina Mitiaeva. 07:44.040 --> 07:48.200 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% It is important for you to know that this story deals with the author's 07:48.200 --> 07:53.160 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% feelings of loss for her grandmother. I'm reading from Polina's story. 07:53.640 --> 07:59.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Reflecting on this autoethnography, I find myself grappling with the distance between generations, 07:59.240 --> 08:04.680 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% particularly the desire to share my artistic endeavors with my grandmother, my Babulya. 08:05.640 --> 08:12.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% This realization that my work and my world might not be understood by her, leading to feelings of 08:12.280 --> 08:19.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% alienation and disconnection in moments where we seek closeness. This disconnection also reflects 08:19.720 --> 08:27.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% how certain figures, like grandmothers, might not fit into this fast-paced world, especially in the 08:27.240 --> 08:34.360 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% world of anime, which is the main field for my artistic projects. Anime-like mediums often 08:34.360 --> 08:41.320 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% prioritize the experiences and perspectives of youth. Reflecting on these differences, 08:41.320 --> 08:47.400 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I uncover deeper truths about the limitations and possibilities within my creative work. 08:49.080 --> 08:59.080 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The second excerpt is from an autoethnographic story titled Birthday Visit by Marina Ramoska. 09:00.760 --> 09:05.480 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% This story is about how a birthday visit to a retirement home in Germany 09:06.120 --> 09:09.880 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% provokes difficult feelings in the author about their 09:10.600 --> 09:16.600 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% distant relationship with their aging parents in Brazil. I'm reading from Marina's story. 09:17.560 --> 09:23.960 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The autoethnographic process has encouraged me to engage in conversations I hadn't thought of actively 09:23.960 --> 09:30.280 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% pursuing before, with my friends and my partner. The conversation with my mother was also quite 09:30.280 --> 09:36.360 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% interesting for me, as this is something we hadn't talked about before, and we might not have talked 09:36.360 --> 09:43.640 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% about if I hadn't been writing this autoethnography. This autoethnography was an opportunity for me to 09:43.720 --> 09:50.440 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% externalize thoughts that had been in my head for a while, and now, having written and reflected 09:50.440 --> 09:57.640 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% on my writing process and relationships, I feel more at ease when thinking about my future choices 09:57.640 --> 10:02.680 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% and also more capable of having these types of conversations and empower to do so. 10:03.720 --> 10:09.960 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% Before writing this autoethnography, I couldn't think of many projects of mine that deal with 10:09.960 --> 10:16.680 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% these questions of life. However, now, I believe that they have always been present in my practice. 10:20.360 --> 10:26.360 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% The students' reflections point at how they benefited personally and artistically from their 10:26.360 --> 10:32.360 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% autoethnographic writing. Not only did they find new meanings in their creative practice, 10:33.080 --> 10:39.720 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% their autoethnographic writing also initiated a process of clarification in terms of how 10:39.720 --> 10:46.520 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% they perceive their roles and relationships with others. Almost all of the seminar participants 10:46.520 --> 10:52.680 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% completed the assignment, and I had the feeling that they had gained a new valuable tool for 10:52.680 --> 11:02.840 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% themselves, a tool they had not worked with before. I intend to continue exploring autoethnography 11:02.840 --> 11:09.240 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% as a potentially beneficial tool for art students, while also working to publish key findings from 11:09.240 --> 11:15.160 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% my literature review and the interview study about autoethnography in Germany. 11:18.360 --> 11:23.560 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% I want to end this presentation with a big thank you to the Bauhaus University Weimar for supporting 11:23.560 --> 11:29.000 line:15 position:3% align:left size:75% my postdoc project. Thank you.