Forgetful Images: Archives & Family Albums

Forgetful Images: Archives & Family Albums

8 Week Class | Registration opens 2026-02-10 12:00 PM

Adult: Introduction-Intermediate
2026-04-13-2026-06-08
6:00 PM-9:00 PM on Mon
$431.00 CAD

Forgetful Images: Archives & Family Albums

8 Week Class | Registration opens 2026-02-10 12:00 PM

This course will introduce students to found and collected materials from personal archives, family albums, official state archives, police files, as well as online archives. We'll dive into the process of generating artwork through the appropriation and repurposing of images while also exploring tools (both analog and digital) for the reproduction, alteration and display of visual material. We will be questioning the nature of memory and its visual representation in photographs by reading and discussing assigned texts. And finally, we will look at a series of artists, filmmakers and illustrators who use archival imagery as a strategy in their artwork including Julie Coburn, Alexandra Lethbridge, Joe Sacco, Art Speigelman, Thomas Ruff, Okwui Enwezor, Carrie Mae Weems, Christian Boltanski, and Morris Lum etc.

Students will leave this workshop with a series of works that focuses on experimentation in a variety of
photo-based medium incorporating drawing, collage, text and image.

There will be no class on May 18th due to the Victoria Day Holiday. 

Base Tuition: $406 + $25 Material fee = $431
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  • What You Will Learn:


  • - Learning digital and analogue destructive techniques like scanner errors along pleating, cutting,
    sewing and surface manipulation
    - Questioning what is an archive and the fallibility of memory
    - Exposure to strategies to integrate archival material, family anecdotes and oral history in artwork
    - Exposure to contemporary artists working in sculptural photography and collage

  • Please keep your receipts in case you need to return items.
    • Glue stick
    • Scissors
    • Double sided tape
    • Metal cork backed ruler (18 inches)
    • Exacto knife with extra blades (#11 blades)
    • Cutting Mat (at least 18 inches)
    • Family photographs, found images, slides, newspaper clipping or any body of images you want to work with etc.
Thalmann, Jessica
Jessica Thalmann

Jessica is an artist and educator currently based in Toronto and New York City. She received an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard College and a BFA in Visual Arts from York University. Thalmann has taught at the International Centre for Photography, Akin Collective, MacLaren Art Centre, Toronto School of Art, Gallery 44 and City College of New York.  She has been an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta, Canada, and at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is a recipient of grants from the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Aperture Foundation, International Centre for Photography, Camera Club of New York Baxter St, and Humble Arts Foundation (New York), VIVO Media Arts Centre (Vancouver), Museum of Contemporary Art, Harbourfront Centre, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Angell Gallery, Gallery TPW, Art Spin, and Gales Gallery at York University (Toronto).