Title: If This Picture Could Talk. (Project Statement)
Abstract: For a while taught photography one day a week to girls selected by their middle school. My students were mostly, though not exclusively, young women of color. My efforts were part of a gender specific program run by a non-profit arts organization in a small city upstate. The program was funded by the federal government as part of a study to determine if art can prevent delinquency. The answer seemed obvious to me as an artist. The success of my workshop however, was quite different from what expected. The stated goals of the program were to present the girls with options... other than trouble. The goal of the visual arts component was to have them work together on a group project, creating a message for other girls dealing with similar personal issues. How difficult this was for our girls speaks to the painful gap between the goals we set for them and what they need. Though I'm trained neither as an educator nor a therapist, have confidence in my ability to relate to kids. enjoy spending time in the South Bronx with my camera and have worked informally with youth groups. trusted the other workshop leaders to address the more difficult psychological issues. Hired as a photographer, determined to teach a technical skill and point my students in the right direction. The girls would create and collect images of their lives that dealt with the concerns of the grant. made a list of subjects for them to choose. They could photograph their family, their daily life and special occasions, places they liked, things that made them happy or sad, a person they admired. described many ways they could create self-portraits. It was immediately suggested to me that wouldn't be able to get through much of the list and that not offer my students a choice of subject, but assign one. Indeed, a list of possibilities did confuse them at first. They weren't sure what wanted them to do. Not that it got in the way of their seizing disposable cameras and reporters' notebooks like the starving at a banquet. They considered my list of suggested subjects. Some of them even kept it. It soon became apparent however that each girl had her own agenda. Providing independence within a structured environment gave me my first lessons in dealing with the contradictory demands for attention and privacy that alternate unexpectedly in the teenage heart. My students were strongly attracted to the camera--as subjects. When someone photographed them, they said I took a picture. They were only too happy to pose. When protested that they were supposed to be taking the pictures, they replied, But you're the photographer! True enough. My project became to move them from the subject to the author of the image. Pictures--regardless of who took them--were claimed eagerly by the subjects and disappeared into jealously guarded collections. It was difficult to persuade the girls to give up even one to hang on the wall. The boldest girl relinquished a few of hers 'cause I'm not in Duplicates would be bartered for a cupcake or a bag of chips, but displaying their pictures was not easy for them. They liked albums they could close. Frames were something to be taken home. only got to see their photos when insisted, which didn't do often. They shared their work more easily with the other members of my team--a high school student from the community and art therapist Karen Rehm, who volunteered to help me in addition to conducting her own workshops. was in the teacher's role, from which these girls remained painfully disconnected. took their overwhelming eagerness to claim the envelope back from the lab as a good enough measure of involvement. taught each day's lesson--Photo Basics, How To Photograph Kids, How to Take a Group Shot-before handed them out. My girls were not interested in the mechanics of photography. When books by women photographers lay untouched in the center of the table, opened them in front of the least recalcitrant student. …
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
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