Here’s your chance to start writing that novel
A popular resolution for many people in January is to improve their writing skills and take on that big novel. Well placed to help with this is a series of writing workshops to be held in Dubai next month. They will be hosted by Hananah Zaheer, who was a finalist for the Doris Betts fiction prize last year and currently serves as an associate fiction editor for the US-based Potomac Review. Participants will be encouraged to share plot ideas and the focus of the sessions is very much on leaving everyone with a viable story to work on. Fiction Some More: A Creative Workshop runs at the Dubai International Writers Centre on January 16 and 23. For more information visit www.diwc.ae
Can an image be trusted or not?
In the 1880s, photography started to be used as evidence in courtrooms. But the reliability of this evidence is a contested one. This exhibition in London looks at eleven case studies, from a 19th-century crime scene to the reconstruction of a drone strike in Pakistan from 2012 using digital and satellite techniques. By doing so, the show attempts to ask whether they can represent objective truth or not. One part of the show examines pictures from Stalin's purges. At the time, these were purporting to show guilt but now they are evidence of brutality. Burden of Proof: The Construction of Visual Evidence runs at The Photographers' Gallery until January 10. For more information visit www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk
A project to photograph every house in Poland
In 1978, Zofia Rydet set out on a monumental task to photograph the inside of every Polish household. It was known as "Sociological Record" and by the time of her death in 1997, she had taken about 20,000 images from more than a hundred villages. The idea for the project emerged when she visited a car factory and saw the small working spaces that employees had decorated with personal ephemera. This exhibition in Warsaw presents a significant number of works from the project. Many of the people are photographed against a wall, looking straight into the camera. Zofia Rydet. Record, 1978 to 1990 runs at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw until January 10. For more information visit www.artmuseum.pl