Ways of Doing Newsletter #1
April 2024
Dear Friends of WoD,
Welcome to our very first newsletter, in which we will tell you a bit about Ways of Doing, and what we are working on. Thanks for signing up!
This is what we are about:
Fostering Ethical Praxis and Collective Care
Ways of Doing is dedicated to fostering an ethical praxis of audiovisual research. We believe in the power of feminist citational practices, collective care, and the creation of an inclusive community of practitioners.
As our name suggests, we are interested in how we might - practically - do these things. We have been asking each other, what practices might we enact to carry out these goals? What might the practices look like? How might we open up our ideas for others to carry out themselves, if they want?
So far, we have put together a range of resources and exercises:
Engagement and Resources
We welcome and encourage you to engage with the resources we offer on our website. Currently, we have two sets of videographic exercises: a collection on Embodiment, and a collection on Feminist Citational Practices.
Please do have a look and let us know what you think. Who would you like to see featured next in the Feminist Citational series?
Both collections feature examples and we look forward to including more in the future…maybe yours?! If you already have something to share, please email us and we’ll tell you what we need to include you in our collection.
Embodiment Exercises
This set of five exercises were developed for the “Embodying the Video Essay” workshop held at Bowdoin College in July, 2023. Each exercise asks makers to consider their physical relationship to the digital materials they work with:
Examples of the exercises made by the participants of the workshop can be found on the site, and we are happy to include new examples. Please send us an email with a link to yours.
Citational Practices for Classroom and Creative Practice
We are really keen to think about citational practices for both the classroom and your own creative endeavors. Many of us already cite sources used in the “credits” sequence of our video essays. However, how might we cite inspirations and influences that inform our process of making? How and when might we cite our stylistic guides, or our methodological influences? What might be the value of thinking through these questions in terms of developing the field?
In response to these questions, we’ve created two exercises that engage with these questions:
“Found in Transition: Catherine Grant’s ‘Dissolves of Passion’.” Citing directly Grant’s methodology of thinking through making, this exercise asks the maker to consider a specific transition used in a single media object to think through how that transition informs an interpretation of the text.
“Dis/Re/Orienting Cinematic Language: Barbara Zecchi’s Feminist Mechanisms:" Inspired by the work of Barbara Zecchi, this exercise asks makers to think about how they are influenced by style and form.
We encourage you to try these exercises and share your results. Examples of contributions can, of course, already be found on the site.
We are in the final stages of planning our third exercise in this series, so stay tuned!
Coming Soon
More exercise examples: maybe yours!
Some top secret projects!
Our next newsletter! Maybe in the summer, maybe in the fall ;)
Warm regards,
The Ways of Doing Team
Lucy Fife Donaldson, Colleen Laird, Dayna McLeod, and Alison Peirse