Posts Categorized: Community Engagement
‘Stilled Lives’, Kay Walsh
HS Projects commissioned ‘Stilled Lives’, a collaborative project between Kay Walsh and Core Arts. ‘Stilled Lives’ investigated the making of contemporary still life studies focussing on significant elements within daily life. Through this exploration of the unseen or unnoticed elements of individual lives of people dealing with mental illness, the image making became a ‘site’ for the expressions of human existence.
The participants were asked to make a series of images that pictured their environment, home, possessions, obsessions or interests to tell us who they are. This could be an object, a place, a glance or a gesture. The images selected for the exhibition included those by both volunteers and members of the Core Arts community and opened up a dialogue between the viewer and image maker and in doing so questioned some of the common preconceptions that surround mental health issues and the lives of the people that it affects.
‘Stilled Lives’ was funded by the Insight Community Arts Programme (2002 – 2015). The project ran from July to December 2008.
‘Beyond Vision I’, PhotoVoice
Working in collaboration with the international charity PhotoVoice, HS Projects launched ‘Beyond Vision I’ in 2008, a three year project with street children from Ecuador.
In partnership with the local, non-profit organisation Juconi and photographers, Lara Kay and Lynn Weddle, ‘Beyond Vision I’ continued the photographers’ earlier work with street children that had begun in 2005.
Photographic courses for street children were run in partnership with the Chantal Fontaine School of Photography in Guayaquil, Ecuador. On completion of the beginners’ course, an advanced programme was run for some of the most enthusiastic and talented young photographers. They learned photographic skills, transferable IT skills, such as website design, and also had the opportunity for tutorials and portfolio reviews with professional photographers. Four-month internships within the photographic industry in Ecuador, alongside encouragement to enter photographic competitions and exhibitions, helped raise the participants’ profile and professionalism while broadening their employment opportunities.
‘Giving children who literally have nothing, access to the luxury of cameras and images of themselves and their lives is a significant contribution in itself. From Juconi’s perspective the lasting impact of ‘Beyond Vision’ has been bringing to the children a realisation that what they choose to photograph is a communication from them.’
JUCONI (Junto Con los Niños or Together with the Children) was founded in 1995 as an Ecuadorian not-for-profit organisation that provides specialised educational and therapeutic services to street-working children and their families.
The Chantal Fontaine School of Photography is a prestigious establishment based in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It is run by Chantal Fontaine, a professional photographer, and provides key commercial photographic services, running a digital studio, an agency and production services, as well as an acclaimed educational programme.
PhotoVoice is an award-winning international charity and the only development organisation of its kind in Europe. Its projects empower some of the most disadvantaged groups in the world with photographic skills so that they can transform their lives.
‘Beyond Vision I’ was commissioned by HS Projects and funded by the Insight Community Arts Programme (2002 – 2015).
‘Me, Myself and I’, Anna Sherbany
In 2005 HS Projects began an annual collaboration with Shacklewell Primary School that ran for four years bringing professional artists to run workshops in support of the school’s arts programme, contributing to the school being awarded an Arts Council Award.
Each project was focused at a specific age group. For the first project, Year 6 was identified in collaboration with the school and the selected artist, Anna Sherbany, to support the children’s impending transition from Primary School to Secondary School. For ‘Me, Myself and I’, Anna Sherbany used photography as a tool to encourage self-esteem, develop self-image and promote a sense of belonging. The project was both child and group centred, encouraging individuality and group interaction.
The children photographed each other using compact cameras and were encouraged to take photographs out of school exploring their own ideas and environment, with the outcome compiled into individual photograph albums. Identity and representation issues were explored through carefully staged studio self-portrait sessions in which the children chose a character, a part, perhaps a personal fantasy, whatever they wanted to be at that moment. The project aimed to empower the children to develop a ‘visual voice’ through photography and image production, as well as learn how to use a camera and frame a photograph.
‘Me, Myself and I’ was commissioned by HS Projects and funded by the Insight Community Arts Programme (2002 – 2015).
The project ran from July to December 2005.