< ECU Directory

Birthe Piontek

Assistant Dean, Associate Professor, Photography

Availability:

Education:

MFA

Bio

Birthe Piontek's art practice involves photography, installation, sculpture, and drawing, focusing on the interconnections between photographic images, objects, history, and personal and collective memory. Birthe is an award-winning author of several photography books, and her work has been exhibited solo and in group shows internationally. At ECU, she is especially interested in utilizing the photographic medium to foster deeper connections between people, expand knowledge and understanding, and build stronger community.

Websites:

Research Interests

Birthe’s research focuses on expanding the two-dimensional photographic surface. By treating the photograph as an object and bringing it in dialogue with drawings, sculptures and assemblages, she aims to question the authoritative and evidential nature of a photograph and draw attention to the fact that an image always only shows a part of an (in the photograph) invisible whole. Birthe is interested in photography's influence in shaping collective and individual memory and history. Working with archival imagery and her own photographs, her recent publication, Zero Hour, investigates photography's role in constructing democracy in postwar Germany, including disseminating dominant social structures central to western ideals. Her current research, Gradient Decent, examines the correlations between photographic images and language patterns in memory creation and how acts of remembering and memory loss can be made visible by AI applications.

24/25 Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Visual Arts Studio VAST 410 26/SP

Description

This course provides students with the opportunity to propose and develop a self-directed body of work. Sections are often offered in a team-taught model with an interdisciplinary focus. Through artistic production, research, discussions, writing and critique, students are expected to increase their understanding of the content and context of their process and production as well as their knowledge of contemporary art. Students meet regularly for group meetings as well as in one-to-one tutorials with their instructor(s). Critiques and discussions complement studio production where considerable independent time and maturity is expected.

This course is subject to priority rules; see here.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.