Reimagining the Family Image: La Fábrica Workshop

“Reimagining the Family Image: Memory, Absence, and Collaborative Looking”

How do photographs shape the stories we tell about family, grief, migration, and identity? What happens when we return to personal images and read them differently, against their original narratives, categories, or intended meanings?

Responding to PHotoEspaña’s 2026 theme, “Reimagining,” this workshop invites participants to collectively rethink the family photograph as a living, unstable, and collaborative object. Drawing from Der Greif’s interest in collective interpretation and remix image culture, alongside Francesca Hummler’s educational practice and founding of Der Greif’s “Face-to-Face” program, the workshop invites participants to reconsider how images carry memory and how meaning shifts through conversation. Rooted in phototherapy, archival intervention, and self-portraiture, the workshop creates a space for collaborative reflection on personal and collective image histories.

Participants will engage in slow looking, collective reading exercises, image sequencing, and reflective writing prompts centered on personal photographs. Rather than focusing on technical image-making, the workshop emphasizes interpretation, recontextualization, and emotional resonance.

Together, participants will explore:

• Family photographs as incomplete or unstable narratives
• The role of absence, silence, and imagination in archives
• Photography as a tool for healing, projection, and re-authoring memory
• How images change meaning through sequencing and collective discussion
• What “human reading” can offer in an era of algorithmic image culture

The workshop welcomes artists, photographers, writers, and anyone interested in memory, archives, and visual storytelling. No prior experience is required, and participation is free with an optional donation.

Participants Should Bring

• 5–10 personal or family photographs (digital or printed)
• A notebook or journal
• Optional: small personal objects connected to memory or family history

About the Workshop Leader

Francesca Hummler is a German-American visual artist, curator, educator, and Program Curator at Der Greif. Her work explores family archives, migration, identity, and photographic healing practices through collaborative image-making and self-portraiture. She has led workshops and educational programs internationally, including at, FFF, Photofusion London, Vermont Center for Photography, and ICA San Diego. Her practice combines photography, collective interpretation, and archival experimentation to explore how images shape personal and cultural memory.