family photography and psychoanalysis

on Tania Carlos and Bruno Tarpani

Dates: September 17, 24, October 01, 08 and 15, 2025
Wednesdays
Hour: 19h to 21h
Duration: 05 meetings
Audience: general interested parties
Investment: R$ 400,00 + fees

Online course
Live, via video conferencing platform
Recorded classes available for a limited time only
Course includes certificate at the end

In this course, we will explore the dialogues between photography and psychoanalysis, focusing on family portraits. Drawing on theoretical and photographic references, we will investigate the relationships between photography, memory, culture, and subjectivity, intersecting with the historical dynamics of family compositions.

The goal of this series of meetings is also to assist participants in their personal and/or artistic research that connects with the topics covered. To this end, there will be opportunities for participants to share their creative or research processes, as well as the presentation of references from the fields of photography and visual arts that explore the theme of family photography in its various formats.

Agenda

Class 01 | Family Photography: History and Culture

• History of the family portrait and its sociocultural contexts: brief history of the emergence of photography in the modern context and of the family portrait, following the development of vernacular photography in relation to the technical advances in photography and the corresponding changes in the notion of “family” in Western culture.
• Psychoanalysis as a discipline that highlights the discomfort and hidden dynamics within the family: how repression within the family can be expressed in vernacular photographic production.

Class 02 | Other families: non-normative constructions

• Other families: non-normative family constructions; symbolic family notions; family in ghettos and margins; family and kinship among indigenous peoples.

Class 03 | Trauma and Memory: Telling a Story

• We will invite participants to bring family photos and, based on Walter Benjamin's idea of ​​"brushing history against the grain," we will facilitate a discussion guided by the following questions: What are the lines of force implied in the narration of a photograph? What does it say about the photographer and the photographed, both sociologically and psychologically? What is framed and what is excluded? Can we rectify the story told by the Other?
• At the end of this meeting, we will encourage participants to bring the same photos they brought with them, along with any developments in their personal research. This participation is not mandatory and is free of charge; participants may bring interventions such as collages, writings, audiovisual productions, photo essays, etc.

Class 04 | The constitution of the subject in psychoanalysis based on the image / presentation of creative references

• We will address concepts such as narcissism and the mirror stage to demonstrate the prominent role played by the notion of image in psychoanalysis's conception of identity construction. These references aim to contribute to the diversification of critical thinking regarding the notion of identity, emphasizing its collective mode of production.
• Guest Vitor Casemiro, author and editor of photobooks, will present a series of works that address the theme of identity and family photography, adding creative references to the participants' research processes.

Class 05 | Presentation of creative processes

• Presentation of developments in the participants’ research creation processes based on the photos brought to the second meeting and the reference body addressed during the meetings.

Tânia Carlos

Tânia Carlos is a psychoanalyst who researches intersections between art and the unconscious from an anti-asylum and gender perspective. She participates in the Clinical Training Programs of the Forum of the Lacanian Field of São Paulo and the Campinas Metropolitan Region. She has taught courses on art and psychoanalysis offered by SESC (School of Social Sciences), museums, and galleries. At the Museum of Modern Art (MAM), she taught the course "Graphic Narratives through the Unconscious," designed by artist DW Ribatski. She collaborates with the MST Mental Health Network and works with Mutabis, a project that supports the critical reading of psychoanalysis in public spaces in São Paulo. She is a co-founder of the Photography and Psychoanalysis Laboratory "Álbum de Família" (Family Album).

Bruno Tarpani

Bruno Tarpani is a psychoanalyst, photographer, and filmmaker. He holds a master's degree in Clinical Psychology (IP-USP) and a specialization in Audiovisual and Multimedia (UFSCar). He directed and wrote the screenplay for the documentary "Ouvedores de Vozes" (Voice Listeners) (Canal Futura). He has conducted research in the areas of performance, visual anthropology, and psychoanalysis. He is a co-founder of the Photography and Psychoanalysis Laboratory "Álbum de Família" (Family Album) and is currently developing a photobook project co-published with Vitor Casemiro.

MAM friend has 20% discount. Be part!
Students, teachers and retirees have a 10% discount
Doubts:
cursos@mam.org.br
WhatsApp: 11 99774 3987

By participating in this activity/event, you authorize, free of charge and definitively, MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, to use your image, voice, biographical data and characteristic signs, captured in video, audio, photography and prints, for the purposes of recording, disseminating and promoting the Museum's activities, in any means, vehicles, supports, media, methods and technologies, tangible or intangible. If you do not want your image to be disclosed, please inform MAM (cursos@mam.org.br)

photo: fashion designer Betsey Johnson in her London apartment, Glamour, New York (1985), by Otto Stupakoff.