Look with clean eyes. Discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.
The Poetics of Place invited students in Marymount’s Video Art & Moving Image course to rediscover familiar environments through the lens of a camera.
Building on their initial explorations of framing and composition, students were challenged to slow down, look more carefully and discover the unexpected visual possibilities hidden within everyday spaces.
The starting question was simple: What have I walked past a hundred times without really seeing?
Working beyond the classroom, students used portable video cameras and mobile devices to investigate their surroundings, searching for overlooked details, unexpected compositions and moments of visual poetics.
Light, shadow, colour, texture, reflection and movement became the raw materials of their investigations. Through close-ups, intentional framing and sustained observation, students explored how ordinary objects and familiar places could become unfamiliar, abstract or unexpectedly poetic.
The emphasis shifted from simply recording a location to actively interpreting it through deliberate visual choices.
Students also explored how camera movement, stillness, duration and sequencing could transform the way the viewer experiences and interprets a place.
Rather than constructing elaborate narratives, they were encouraged to discover meaning through observation, experimentation and the act of looking.
The Poetics of Place represents an important step in developing students’ visual language, moving from spontaneous experimentation towards more considered, personal approaches to video art and moving-image practice.
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