New York and the SVA seen by Matthieu Lavanchy
October 30, 2009
The collaboration between SVA - School of Visual Arts, NY and us/ITS started in 2007 at ITS#SIX. Three ITS#PHOTO finalists have been give a one year scholarships to fly to New York and attend the "Photoglobal" photography course. This intensive residency offers international participants the opportunity to work in technologically advanced facilities with renowned photographers to bring critical rigor to the advanced photographer. The first finalist to win the SVA Photoglobal Award and attend the course was ITS#SIX’s May Heek. After May Heek it was the turn of Matthieu Lavanchy, who won the prize at ITS#SEVEN in 2008 and has just now finished his experience there.
You must know how we like to stay in touch with our finalists and find out what they're up to. No question we wanted to know from Matthieu what his New York year was like!
Things went quite fast for Matthieu after ITS#SEVEN. He had a little more than a month to prepare all of the necessary papers and leave for New York. So when he landed in the U.S. he felt slightly lost in the beginning, since he couldn't believe he was there already! People at SVA were very helpful in helping him settle in quickly. Upon his arrival Stephen Frailey - Chair of the SVA Photography Department - and Marc Joseph - Head teacher of the Photoglobal program - welcomed him, and he got to meet with all of the other students selected for the course.
When Matthieu first moved in New York he found an apartment to stay in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A friend of his from Switzerland lived there and helped him out in finding the place. Another student from the course, Stefanie Pluta, was also looking for a flat so they became roommates. Funny thing is that they ended up collaborating on a photo project! It's called "The Aftermath" and we've included a couple of pictures from it. The apartment in Bushwick had a huge living room that could be used as a working space. The only problem with the apartment was that it was quite far from the city and the neighbourhood wasn't so great...they even got robbed!
That's why Matthieu then decided to move to another place, and was lucky enough to find a really nice loft in a much better neighbourhood, with a beautiful view on Manhattan. It became his home until the end of his stay.
Students of the course all came from different countries. They would meet on Thursdays, and spend mornings on various "field trips" organised by the head teacher Marc Joseph, basically meeting with great artists and professionals from the art world and the editorial world to learn from their experience. In the afternoon students would meet back at school to discuss projects and ideas. For the rest of the time they could choose some classes from the photography department and work on their projects. But what's really a plus for photographers is that SVA has an incredible archive of all sorts of cameras, allowing students to try out and experiment with them!
Matthieu told us (and we had no doubt) that the course was a tremendous experience. He made new friends among the students from the program as well as in New York. He had the opportunity to assist some artists, meet with art dealers and do interviews for magazines he loves. This is the great thing of New York: it's a great place for artists and things go real fast, which means there's a lot of opportunities of gaining experience as well as of finding work.
What changed in Matthieu's approach to photography after his SVA experience is that now he has learned to work in a more independent way, developing ideas that are truly important to him and finding the right people to help him out in the process.
Now it's time for Clare Bottomley, winner of the SVA Photoglobal Award at ITS#EIGHT, to start her experience at School of Visual Arts! She reached the ITS#PHOTO finals at ITS#EIGHT by winning the online competition ITS#PHOTOweb, open for all photographers regardless of age, country or education. The prize for the winner of this online competition consisted of becoming an ITS#PHOTO finalist. Clare arrived in the Big Apple in the beginning of September and just like May Heek and Matthieu she had little time to realise what was happening. By now we're sure that she's already at ease in the city, but that's another story will talk about another time...
