PhotoVoice Project
"The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: ‘There is the surface. Now think—or rather feel, intuit—what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.’ Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy." ~Susan Sontag
Note: The due at has been changed to Wednesday April 11th, during our final meeting
at 1.30-2.30, which will take place at The Labyrinth at Brescia College's The Circle Centre for Spirituality,
Activism, and The Earth. This will allow for those who may be travelling back to London from home
on Easter weekend.
Note: The due at has been changed to Wednesday April 11th, during our final meeting
at 1.30-2.30, which will take place at The Labyrinth at Brescia College's The Circle Centre for Spirituality,
Activism, and The Earth. This will allow for those who may be travelling back to London from home
on Easter weekend.
So, you want details, do you?
This assignment – a photo essay in which you get to explore your own voice – invites you to look at peace in your own lives, to explore the living personal history of your own engagements with peace, co-operation, and violence by choosing a topic, a subject, an aspect of peace, co-operation, and non-violence, and then exploring it with photos and text.
What this project asks you to do is take a parataxic approach to the momentary and emergent truths of your own world. This is easier and more difficult than it seems, since violence and competition and brutality are so naturalized by our cultural existence, thinking about them is kind of like thinking about breathing. And in a way I hope you come to see, what I am asking you to do is photograph and write about your breath and the breath of the worlds around you.
You need to start thinking about this now, and think about it in the context of the readings, my commentary, and the films. These can be starting points. Choose a focus, a subject. Here are a few suggestions:
You can also come up with Your Own Project Idea for a PhotoVoice presentation which connects with the themes and ideas we are exploring. I will help you refine your questions if I can. But feel free to ignore my advice. Hell, feel free period. You just might like it.
There really is no limit to this. Your project should be about the world around you -- and so not just about you, not only an autobiography. You have to come up with a theme, a focus. To facilitate this, I invite you to come up with a one page statement of your theme and some preliminary ideas for how you will explore this -- the kinds of photos you may want to take. This isn't required -- you may have a pretty good idea already, after all. But if you get this initial statement to me early enough in the term, I might be able to offer you some suggestions or point you towards folks who might be able to help you. You can give this to me at any time in the term, along with your email address and I will see what suggestions I might have. Suggestion one: don't leave this until too late in the term. We really do have such a limited time together, after all.
Then take up your camera and think – what kinds of photographs, what sorts of images – accidental, staged, public or private, funny or dangerous and so on – would I take if I wanted to tell someone about peace and violence in my world, and the worlds I participate in. There is no real limit to what you can choose to photograph. Remember, this is your story – not a story told in isolation since you are part of and a maker of the worlds around you, but it is still your story. What is it?
The goal of using images and text is to break the restriction of linear thinking that too often surrounds questions of understanding the lives of others. By making you think about and engage your own life in a non-linear way, my hope is you will gain insights both into yourselves and into the worlds of others.
Once you have your photos, get them printed if you used a film camera, or if digital, keep them nearby on your computer. Live with the photographs – look at them every day. When I am preparing my own visual work, I often print draft copies of the digital images and stick them to my studio wall so I have to live with them and think about them. Look for patterns, for ideas, for hidden things in the images you may not have seen when you took the photograph. Think about the story the images tell you and the story you want to tell with them – which may not be the same story, after all. We’ll discuss this project as often as necessary in class. We’ll share ideas and tools, we’ll get through this all together. And surprise each other.
How you choose to present the outcome of this research is up to you, within the constraints on presentation indicated in the notes below. You should have a minimum of 30 photographs in your assignment, along with a discussion text of about 2000 words. However, you can present the images and text in any way you feel helps structure your presentation so don't think of this as necessarily a straight formal essay with images, though that approach is also fine if that is what you choose to do. What you choose to write about and how you choose to write it is entirely up to you. You could, if you are so inclined, write a fictional piece in which the images form part of the story. You could write a dictionary of sorts – choose aspects occurring in the images and define them in a descriptive and explanatory way. You could use the images as part of a story board presentation for a movie about your sexual world. Use your imagination. Be inventive. Surprise me and, always, surprise yourself. Use this assignment to get inside the heart of the heart of worlds around you, and in the process, you'll get outside them and see them in new ways.
Now I know some of you are probably thinking - I am about as creative as a moth larva. I know how you feel – most of my closest friends are accomplished and renowned artists which means I usually feel like a nebbish in their company. Don't sweat it. We'll all be fine.
You might consider using the SHOWeD method to help organize your approach this project. This method, used in many social change PhotoVoice projects around the world, is built around asking several questions about what the photographs show:
The only limitation in this project is this: All the photos have to be taken by you.
Technical Points:
1. You will need either a disposable film camera, or a digital or other film camera for this assignment. If using a digital camera, you must know how to retrieve photos from your camera. Cell phone cameras, while useful for capturing your friends eating tacos at the Spoke, are not always reliable so bear this in mind. They can work just fine, but make sure you know how to use them effectively. No extensions will be granted because you have run into technical difficulties. You should work those issues out early on in this process.
2. You should include not fewer than 30 photos in your assignment. These must be submitted in one of these ways:
a. you can burn your photos onto CD or DVD or onto a thumbdrive, along with the text you’ve written. You can integrate the photos directly into your wordprocessor file with your text, but make sure the images are presented large enough to be clearly seen. You should also include the original image files in there own folder on the disk or thumbdrive because sometimes embedded images don’t translate well between computers. This way I can still see the images, even if the embedded version messes up.
b. you can also present your images and text in a Powerpoint slide show, or an Adobe PDF presentation or any other Windows readable presentation format. Just burn this to your disk or thumbdrive.
c. you can post your project as a website, blog, tumblr site or whatever strikes your fancy. There are several free hosting and sitebuilding services around – I am currently using weebly.com, though I use the paid version because I need a few additional features for course websites. Look around and see what's out there. Several people have used Prezi – at prezi.com – to put together either online or standalone presentations which are quite inventive. Have a look at that for ideas too.
3. If you submit this assignment on CD or DVD, or on a thumbdrive, you must also test your disk to ensure it is readable. This is easy – open the files on at least two other computers so you know the disk is working. If you are posting your project as a website or blog, you need only provide me with a page with your name, id, and the url for the website or blog. No disk will be necessary.
There is no right way to do this – there are no right kinds of photos, there are no correct answers. Each of you is going to arrive at different destinations, are going to make different journeys through this assignment. Enjoy the trip.
Remember: This is meant to interesting, challenging, and fun. Ideas should be like that, even ideas which make us uncomfortable or confuse us. Have fun, use your imagination, take chances, learn. It won't hurt, honestly. I know these things.
As we discuss this in class -- that is, as I get to know you and you get to know we -- I will add ideas from the group to help everyone with this.
Remember: You can give me a one page statement of your ideas for this project at any time during the term, along with your email address, and I will give you any suggestions I might have to help you do this. This preliminary statement is not required, and there is no deadline for asking for help this way but remember, get started early.
This is due at the beginning of class on Monday April 9th. You will be able to pick these up when you turn in your final assignments on Friday April 20th.
For a few ideas about how PhotoVoice is used as a tool for community building and social change, check these out:
Working With The Whole Picture
Youthbet PhotoVoice Project
Rights! Cameras! Action!
Eyes of Youth: Kurbin, Albania
For more examples, visit the PhotoVoice.Org projects page HERE.
What this project asks you to do is take a parataxic approach to the momentary and emergent truths of your own world. This is easier and more difficult than it seems, since violence and competition and brutality are so naturalized by our cultural existence, thinking about them is kind of like thinking about breathing. And in a way I hope you come to see, what I am asking you to do is photograph and write about your breath and the breath of the worlds around you.
You need to start thinking about this now, and think about it in the context of the readings, my commentary, and the films. These can be starting points. Choose a focus, a subject. Here are a few suggestions:
- violence and built space: the material conditions of streets and buildings and lights and barriers are infused with control, violence, and co-operation. Ask yourself how the built world makes peace or, perhaps, makes it difficult or even impossible.
- today is a day of peace: try this - choose a neighbourhood, for example, and photograph the people in it going about their day to day stuff. How are these days about co-operation or competition, kindness or violence. Capture the moments of peace in this neighbourhood. You could also choose a group of people, and use their days -- get their permission -- to explore this.
- age has it's own rewards: thinking about people at different ages, and the challenges and accomplishments each faces is another way of imagining peace. How does age connect with peace and co-operation?
- class-work: think of class in any way you can. Class as in economic/social class. Class as classroom. Class as taste or distinction [as in "that's not very classy"]. Then go wild.
- violence, surveillance and control in your worlds: this will allow you to explore the intersection of violence, control, and surveillance as processes which constrain acts of peace as an everyday emancipatory practice.
- what is community?: this will allow you to explore the meaning and practices of co-operation and conflict in your community or communities.
You can also come up with Your Own Project Idea for a PhotoVoice presentation which connects with the themes and ideas we are exploring. I will help you refine your questions if I can. But feel free to ignore my advice. Hell, feel free period. You just might like it.
There really is no limit to this. Your project should be about the world around you -- and so not just about you, not only an autobiography. You have to come up with a theme, a focus. To facilitate this, I invite you to come up with a one page statement of your theme and some preliminary ideas for how you will explore this -- the kinds of photos you may want to take. This isn't required -- you may have a pretty good idea already, after all. But if you get this initial statement to me early enough in the term, I might be able to offer you some suggestions or point you towards folks who might be able to help you. You can give this to me at any time in the term, along with your email address and I will see what suggestions I might have. Suggestion one: don't leave this until too late in the term. We really do have such a limited time together, after all.
Then take up your camera and think – what kinds of photographs, what sorts of images – accidental, staged, public or private, funny or dangerous and so on – would I take if I wanted to tell someone about peace and violence in my world, and the worlds I participate in. There is no real limit to what you can choose to photograph. Remember, this is your story – not a story told in isolation since you are part of and a maker of the worlds around you, but it is still your story. What is it?
The goal of using images and text is to break the restriction of linear thinking that too often surrounds questions of understanding the lives of others. By making you think about and engage your own life in a non-linear way, my hope is you will gain insights both into yourselves and into the worlds of others.
Once you have your photos, get them printed if you used a film camera, or if digital, keep them nearby on your computer. Live with the photographs – look at them every day. When I am preparing my own visual work, I often print draft copies of the digital images and stick them to my studio wall so I have to live with them and think about them. Look for patterns, for ideas, for hidden things in the images you may not have seen when you took the photograph. Think about the story the images tell you and the story you want to tell with them – which may not be the same story, after all. We’ll discuss this project as often as necessary in class. We’ll share ideas and tools, we’ll get through this all together. And surprise each other.
How you choose to present the outcome of this research is up to you, within the constraints on presentation indicated in the notes below. You should have a minimum of 30 photographs in your assignment, along with a discussion text of about 2000 words. However, you can present the images and text in any way you feel helps structure your presentation so don't think of this as necessarily a straight formal essay with images, though that approach is also fine if that is what you choose to do. What you choose to write about and how you choose to write it is entirely up to you. You could, if you are so inclined, write a fictional piece in which the images form part of the story. You could write a dictionary of sorts – choose aspects occurring in the images and define them in a descriptive and explanatory way. You could use the images as part of a story board presentation for a movie about your sexual world. Use your imagination. Be inventive. Surprise me and, always, surprise yourself. Use this assignment to get inside the heart of the heart of worlds around you, and in the process, you'll get outside them and see them in new ways.
Now I know some of you are probably thinking - I am about as creative as a moth larva. I know how you feel – most of my closest friends are accomplished and renowned artists which means I usually feel like a nebbish in their company. Don't sweat it. We'll all be fine.
You might consider using the SHOWeD method to help organize your approach this project. This method, used in many social change PhotoVoice projects around the world, is built around asking several questions about what the photographs show:
- What do you See here?
- What is really Happening here?
- How does this relate to Our lives?
- Why does this exist?
- What can we Do?
The only limitation in this project is this: All the photos have to be taken by you.
Technical Points:
1. You will need either a disposable film camera, or a digital or other film camera for this assignment. If using a digital camera, you must know how to retrieve photos from your camera. Cell phone cameras, while useful for capturing your friends eating tacos at the Spoke, are not always reliable so bear this in mind. They can work just fine, but make sure you know how to use them effectively. No extensions will be granted because you have run into technical difficulties. You should work those issues out early on in this process.
2. You should include not fewer than 30 photos in your assignment. These must be submitted in one of these ways:
a. you can burn your photos onto CD or DVD or onto a thumbdrive, along with the text you’ve written. You can integrate the photos directly into your wordprocessor file with your text, but make sure the images are presented large enough to be clearly seen. You should also include the original image files in there own folder on the disk or thumbdrive because sometimes embedded images don’t translate well between computers. This way I can still see the images, even if the embedded version messes up.
b. you can also present your images and text in a Powerpoint slide show, or an Adobe PDF presentation or any other Windows readable presentation format. Just burn this to your disk or thumbdrive.
c. you can post your project as a website, blog, tumblr site or whatever strikes your fancy. There are several free hosting and sitebuilding services around – I am currently using weebly.com, though I use the paid version because I need a few additional features for course websites. Look around and see what's out there. Several people have used Prezi – at prezi.com – to put together either online or standalone presentations which are quite inventive. Have a look at that for ideas too.
3. If you submit this assignment on CD or DVD, or on a thumbdrive, you must also test your disk to ensure it is readable. This is easy – open the files on at least two other computers so you know the disk is working. If you are posting your project as a website or blog, you need only provide me with a page with your name, id, and the url for the website or blog. No disk will be necessary.
There is no right way to do this – there are no right kinds of photos, there are no correct answers. Each of you is going to arrive at different destinations, are going to make different journeys through this assignment. Enjoy the trip.
Remember: This is meant to interesting, challenging, and fun. Ideas should be like that, even ideas which make us uncomfortable or confuse us. Have fun, use your imagination, take chances, learn. It won't hurt, honestly. I know these things.
As we discuss this in class -- that is, as I get to know you and you get to know we -- I will add ideas from the group to help everyone with this.
Remember: You can give me a one page statement of your ideas for this project at any time during the term, along with your email address, and I will give you any suggestions I might have to help you do this. This preliminary statement is not required, and there is no deadline for asking for help this way but remember, get started early.
This is due at the beginning of class on Monday April 9th. You will be able to pick these up when you turn in your final assignments on Friday April 20th.
For a few ideas about how PhotoVoice is used as a tool for community building and social change, check these out:
Working With The Whole Picture
Youthbet PhotoVoice Project
Rights! Cameras! Action!
Eyes of Youth: Kurbin, Albania
For more examples, visit the PhotoVoice.Org projects page HERE.
Make sure you read first a few words about grades and grading under the to begin tab so you understand how your work will be "marked".
