Faculty

Gözde Efe, Founder

I have been working with people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds at different levels of education: preschools, elementary schools, public and private schools, nonprofits, pre-college, college, and more for the last fourteen years. Unicef, Root Division, Exploration School at Yale, Montessori Children's House of the West Coast, Youth in Arts, and San Francisco Art Institute are only a few of those that I taught for.

I have continuously developed and completely customized my curriculum; it has always sparked curiosity not only among my students but also my colleagues, who then started conversations about change.

I knew no boundaries between the art forms many institutions structure their systems around (a big thank you to the San Francisco Art Institute). I knew ideas, concepts, inspiration, innovation, and connection. I wanted to connect it all rather than set them apart.

I heard thousands of ideas and witnessed tens of thousands of different ways come to life. Not a day passed without extreme awe. The list is long. See some of my students' previous works here.

I ask my students and myself questions all along the way.

Seeing School —as its name suggests —is about seeing. We don't do photography, film, drawing, or animation. We see; we see through them. More than that, we dive deep on seeing. How does a cat see? How does a human see? How far? How near? How sharp? How does the way a cat sees resemble our seeing through a camera?

Everything is customized. Our in-house programs are conceptual and connected classes that somebody can take at any time in any order.

We run programs for different organizations, circles, communities, companies-you name it.

If you are interested in speaking with me to see what we can do together please book a time to chat.

I'm excited to glimpse what you see, and I know you'll be in awe, surprised, inspired, and proud.

There is a lot more to it.

Join Seeing School. It's fun. It's eye-and-mind-opening.

Asako Shimazaki, Faculty

Asako Shimazaki was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1984, Shimazaki left Japan and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and in 1991 completed her BFA in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Shimazaki exhibits her work in both the US and Japan, and is represented in the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In Ayu no Kaze, published by TBW Books in 2019, Shimazaki returns to the scenery of Japan, with pictures that “grab us by their distinctive and particular vision and persuade us that what this photographer saw was both marvelous and true” (Sandra S. Phillips, 2018). Most recently, Shimazaki’s photography has been published by Drop Leaf Press in a curated poetic narrative, All of It, Tinged, with author Diana Fisher.

Notable among Shimazaki’s collections are Marcus’ Single Digits, a series documenting the first ten years of her son’s life, and Untitled, an intimate and moving glimpse into a family in mourning. Shimazaki’s work, through spontaneous and intimate portraits and shifting cityscapes and landscapes, seeks to capture light.

Shimazaki lives in San Francisco and has taught at a Montessori preschool since 1998.

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