Workshop: Making Lumens as Cathartic Process

What role can art play in our ongoing healing and reflective processes while managing our health? Led by photographer and image maker Frances Bukovsky, this workshop will explore combining the lumen printing process with objects and documents as a way to thoughtfully engage with and reclaim health experiences.

Workshop participants are encouraged to bring objects and documents related to their health that they are interested in incorporating into a photographic process. Materials have the potential to be damaged in the art making process, so using copies of materials rather than originals is recommended. Participants will be able to make 1-2 finished prints and will learn about the history and alchemy of lumen printing through the workshop. This workshop is ideal for anyone 16+ who would like to explore their relationship to chronic or acute health experiences that they have experienced or are currently experiencing.

This workshop is sponsored in part by the Marion Park Lewis Foundation for the Arts and First Bank. 

About the Artist

Frances Bukovsky (b. 1996, they/her) is a fine art documentary photographer thinking about chronic illness, disability, and queerness as these topics relate to selfhood, relationships, and medical experiences. They utilize self portraiture, documentary style photography, and alternative process prints to approach their dynamic and fluid experience of both illness and gender identity. 

In 2018, Bukovsky earned a BFA with Honors in Photography and Imaging from Ringling College of Art and Design. Since then, they have published their debut monograph, Vessel (2020), with Fifth Wheel Press, and have been published internationally for their work about chronic illness. Besides their personal art practice, Bukovsky participates in community building through photography as a member of Kinship Photography Collective.

Bukovsky works as a photographer, social media manager, and disability respite care provider. They have a deep rooted interest in the history and practice of medicine, from historical traditions of healing, to modern practices. When they aren’t making photographs, they can be found reading any book that catches their eye, wandering around the woods someplace, or spending time with their cat Edgar.