Birthe Piontek
Education:
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.
Courses
| Course Name | Department | Course Code | Term | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photography | PHOT 400 | 26/FA | |||||
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