Dulwich Spotlights | Damien Siqueiros: Creating for Impact

As part of our annual Diversity Arts Series, we invite world-renowned artists and professionals to share their impactful creativity and insights with students of different year groups. Today, we are highlighting artist Damian Siquerios who we have partnered with again this year to share his experience, learnings, and artwork.

Personal Introduction

A renowned ‘Creator for Impact’, Damian Siqueiros is an artist, photographer, and designer who uses empathic visual storytelling to create positive narratives with the aim of driving social and ecological healing. He uses a wide range of media including fine art and advertisement photography, installation, video art, art direction, and education to express his ideas.

Performing arts is a core element of Siqueiros’ work and he has collaborated with talented choreographers such as Sidi Larbi, José Navas, Margie Gillis, Kyra Jean Green, Andrew Skeels, Danse Danse, and Les Grands Ballets de Montreal. Throughout his career, he has created more than 60 exhibitions in Canada and internationally, notably in Washington D.C., at the Art Museum of the Americas, Miami at the Frost Museum, Mexico, South Korea at the MMCA Goyang Residency, Toronto, Montreal, and New York at the prestigious Tambaran gallery.

With the continuous improvement of camera technology in both DSLR cameras and in smartphones - digital photography has become a popular and increasingly accessible way to capture moments of our lives. Many of our students already use photography as an expressive art form with great success, as evidenced by the incredible submissions to our annual Dulwich Photo Competition. However, there is always more to learn so as part of our Diversity Arts Series this year, with the theme of "Creating for Impact," Damian has developed two virtual educational programmes for our students to improve their artistic photography techniques – Online Workshops and Individual Portfolio FastTrack Coaching.

The program is currently being delivered through a combination of 5 modalities: informal chats, short instructional videos paired up with files for theory, and three to four live scheduled sessions of group or individual photography practice. 

Online Workshops

During three online workshops, students first learn from Damian's experience and insights as a professional artist and culture worker, while also being introduced to a range of artistic perspectives and developing their technical photography skills. Then, from a photoshoot with a dancer in his Montreal studio, Damien explains his process – initial ideation, preparation of the set and lighting, and finally shooting, directing and interacting with the model during the shoot itself.

After three sessions, students take the lead with their own projects and participate in live feedback sessions with Damian to improve their process and their post-production editing skills. 

Through these workshops, students learn and reinforce essential technical and design skills, develop critical thinking around the construction of images and self-expression, and reflect on the social impact of thought-provoking artistic photos.

Individual Portfolio FastTrack Coaching

The Individual Portfolio FastTrack Coaching is a one-on-one coaching modality tailored to talented, committed, and stand-out students planning to apply to art programs and other creative college or university studies. Before the coaching session, Damian reviews each student's portfolio to understand their creative discourse and prepare for coaching tips specific to their strengths and challenges. Based on students' portfolios and the projects they are creating for the workshop; Damian helps each student to create a coherent portfolio that highlights their voices as an artist.

These Creation for Impact Workshops take a holistic approach to learning that engages directly with current social and environmental challenges. The uniquely valuable experience enables students to see the world from multiple cultural viewpoints and expands their potential as artists and global citizens. We look forward to seeing Damian bring his new works and experience to us again!