Some participants new work

We have already supplied the participants with disposable cameras and some of them have already shot some films. The work now is a bit heterogenic wich mean that we should give maybe more specific guidelines. Here there’s some of the work of Roger Zoppa and the couple Jorge&Margaritte. Pictures by Roger Zoppa and Jorge&Margaritte.

 

Jorge & Margarite having coffee in their table inside the Distriandina

 

"Ecuatorian Championship, The Latins United"

 

The market

Dancing outside The Bodeguita

 

the tunnels underground the roundabout

Outside Distriandina

 

After a Football Match

Info flyer for participants

Photo Voice

Photo Voice is a group of people that encourage the use of documentary photography by giving the chance to those that have traditionally been the subject of the photographers, to become the creators themselves. Proceeding in that way, they become the subjects and the photographers and have control over how they are perceived by the rest of the world. 

Definetely a website we have to look at. Power to the people!

Visit the website here

Arnau

New participants

After me being in Barcelona in a kind of vacation and Ian struggling to find sierra leonians youth to participate in the migrants perspective participant photography project, we finally find the Distrandina as our headquarter to find participants.

Some staff from the Southwark Community action centre help us out to make up our mind on where and how we should look for participants in our project. Two main groups came out: the SIerra Leone community (the largest one is based in Southwark) and the Latinoamerican community. After writing a short document about the aims and guidelines of the project and sending it to different groups we hardly have get any answer. From that point on we decide to wander around the Distrandina where the colombian community meets up. But we find not only Colombians, but Mexicans, Peruvians, Chilenians and some MAPJD students (apart from us) having salsa lessons…

Our first day in the Distrandina was really productive:

A couple of a man from Chile and a woman from Barbados, passionate salsa dancers that spend all their social life within the latinoamerican centre DIstrandina, accepted to participate. We gave them a disposable camera and we are going to meet them next weekend to see and talk about what they have produced. They say something like “is going to be a good therapy for us as a migrant couple” which made us thing they got perfectly the nature of the project.

A colombian photographer specialized in social latinamerican events within the Elephant also accepted to particiapate. And we are pending to know if a very clever peruvian waiter wants to participate. He is going to send us some pictures and tell his friends about our project, but by now he said he is not yet ready to approach his feelings /emotions about the Elephant through photography. 

The owner of the DIstrandina, César, is also interested to participate and we are going to meet him next thrusday to talk about it quitely.

Our second day in the Distrandinda was also productive as we find a new participant. A young mexican girl very enthusiast to participate.

From now on we have to meet our participants one by one and see what they have produced and probably send them to take more pictures. It would be great at the end to meet all of them together and discuss what they will have discussed previously with us: what made them take those pictures. Why they are important for them. Which connexions they find with their own culture. How their perception about the UK have changed since they are here…

The possible out come will be a medium format portrait of each participant presented together with a selection of their work and some writing from them about the pictures. But we have to work this out as we will record interviews and film all the process / meetings.

Next post will be the document we are handing everybody who is thinking about to participate. I dion’t have it here right now, Ian’s got it.

Arnau

Proposal for community groups

A Migrants Perspective

A participatory documentary project looking at the lives of migrants in Elephant & Castle London

Who we are
We are MA photography students at London College of Communication taking part in a long-term project documenting the changes and life of the Elephant and Castle area.

Aims of the Project
*To explore the thoughts and perspectives of people who have immigrated the UK and settled in Elephant and Castle.
* To give the opportunity for participants to share their personal experiences and document their own lives and culture.
*To contrast different perceptions of the UK by those who are settled here, new arrivals and people in their home country.
* To explore the relationships between recently arrived immigrants and those who have lived here for a long time.
* To discuss the contemporary issues affecting immigrants today.
* To have fun and create some interesting work.

Methodology
* Ask participants to look at their own culture through photography.
* Participants may use their own camera, or we will supply disposable film cameras.
*Discuss with the participants their thoughts and motivations behind their photographs. This may be recorded as writing, sound or video
* Conduct interviews and research asking participants to bring in significant images or objects about their life.
* There will be a voluntary exhibition in a public space in Elephant and Castle.
* A website will be set up for sharing and viewing of work

Additional ideas
*To repeat a similar project in the participants country of origin with international exhibitions and a website showing the work from different groups.

ian

Marcus Coates shaman ritual for e c

organised by nomad marcus coates has been wandering around elephant and castle performing shaman rituals in warm up to a performance on the 5th of June…. aparently he is a very nice guy with some interesting points and not a lunatic with a dead rabbit on his head! I saw his piece in alter modern at the tate and i thought it was very interesting (he interviewed an israeli spokesperson with a badger on his head and talked about animals responses to percieved threats which i interpretated as a comparison to the actions of the IDF and israeli gov towards percevied threats… definitly a different approach to peace negotiations.)

anyway, not much to do with this project but interesting…

ian

Shortwave cinema

Shortwave in Southwark is a newly opened venue in with a small cinema and bar. Its a really nice place ran by a guy called Rob. thurs -sunday they screen independant films, but he is open to ideas for screenings from individuals or groups earlier in the week… could be a very nice venue to present some work. website is here

Ruth Robinson – face to face project

Ruth Robinson is a wales based photographer who works with the red cross on participatory photo projects. For example she got people to document the effects of the 2004 tsunami. These subjects are normally documented by photojournalists so it is interesting to give some power back to the subjects. her website is here.

ian

Stage 1

After successful meetings at CA Southwark we are in the process of defining a simple first step for the project…something easy and clear to approach various groups with to ask if they would like to be involved.

The 1st stage of this project will probably be a participatory photographic project asking participants to photograph something in elephant and castle (this may be something that represents there culture, or something that represents their life in elephant and castle).  We might use disposable film cameras giving each particpant only 35 frames to shoot and not allowing any deletion of photos. We are more interested in why a photograph was taken and the thought process, rather than its photographic quality.

We will probably work with either latin american communities or Sierra Leone. Both would be great

Ian

Jim Goldberg photographer

Jim Goldberg is a photographer that takes portraits of people and asks the subject to write around the picture afterwards. This is one possibility for combining photographs taken by or of particpants and there story or thoughts about why they took this particular photo.

his portfolio is online at magnum here