By Jessica Wallach | Teaching Artist and Interim Digital Media Mgr
One of the ways Story Tapestries amplifies the voices of youth who have historically been underserved is by sharing with them tools and skills in an art form that creates a new path of expression. This is especially powerful when youth connect with a medium that they find stimulating and interesting, and even more so when they’re able to collaborate with adults as they create their work product so there’s space for self-reflection as well as reflection with others. Teaching Artist, Jessica Wallach, was able to lead a project with all of these elements with one of our collaborating nonprofits, YMCA Metro Washington. Exploring a multitude of perspectives and learning to be open and find value in another person’s perspective is a fundamental element of shifting the narrative and creating equitable spaces. Jessica shares her experience:
YMCA Metro Washington asked for an artist in residence for a photo project that allowed the young people to explore issues important to them. This project was different than most because each young person came with a mentor. This set up some interesting dynamics… Each photographer had a buddy thinking with them about the stories they wanted to tell with the camera, and that person had a long standing deep, rich relationship with them already.
The question was how to provide the youth with compelling spaces to photograph where they could take photos of the issues they were passionate about. The answer became…everywhere! Our plan was to photograph at different places around Montgomery County and have them take photos of things related to safety, community engagement, accessibility and sustainability. The first class we met at the Silver Spring Civic Center on Saturday late morning, which meant there was a Farmers’ Market going on. At this first meeting, it was clear the youth were very interested in photographing nature, so the second two classes we planned to go for nature walks.
In that first class, we introduced working with DSLR cameras, which most of them had not used before. They learned how these big cameras were similar, and different, from their cell phone cameras they were used to working with. They also needed to learn how to work a camera, what makes cameras unique. They learned about how you can stop or capture motion by controlling the shutter speed and you can create depth by your distance from the subject/its distance from the background, zooming in and out, and changing the aperture. They played with these two concepts throughout our time together. On the first nature walk that started in the heart of downtown Bethesda, they stopped the motion of bikers and walkers, took photos of each other jumping, and played with depth both on a small scale like with a leaf or a much grander scale of a pathway. They loved capturing light as it dappled through the trees. They could not stop taking photos. They photographed all the way back to our meeting spot.
The third day we went for another nature walk, but first we stopped at a basketball court and some of the youth played and some photographed. I pointed out a slanting wall - it’s what I do when I teach, point out the things that catch my eye. On the walk, one of the youth continued on her quest to photograph paths and depth. The other three were brothers and they could not get enough of photographing each other.
That day we came back to the classroom and started working on reflections. They each picked one or two photos and reflected on how the photo related to themselves, their family, their community or the world. Three of the youth were brothers and all three connected their photos for their family. Another youth compared two photos and reflected about how she had many new paths and choices ahead of her and how she has a gate to limit who enters her personal space.
The mentors modeled curiosity and enthusiasm about the world as we went on our nature walks, photographing alongside the youth and pointing out what they found interesting and what they thought the youth might find interesting. The mentors continued to leverage their relationship with each young person during the reflections on the photos. Each youth was paired with a mentor or YMCA staff member and listened and/or took notes on paper plates, filling their plates with reflections.
It is clear from these reflections that using the camera helped the youth notice small details that connect deeply to their lives.
Check out highlights of participants’ photography and reflections:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CXKh8pS4CpTYviP2XjAmrPvSvqd3NBLC?usp=drive_link
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