“Young photo-voices from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon”
Al-Jana /Arab Resource Center for Popular Art, Beirut
presented by Mai Masri, filmmaker
www.oneworld.org/al-janaAl-Jana, Arab Recourse Center for Popular Art, Beirut is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation in Lebanon. Al-Jana was established in 1990 in response to the need of the community and NGOs for a resource centre that can provide training and resources relating to youth, culture, and expression. The programme “When refugee children become photo-journalists and filmmakers” presented at the Arts in Education Forum is a campaign to encourage young Palestinian camp-dwelling refugees to reflect on their lives. Through photography, video film, drawing, and writing they had the chance to express their feelings, hopes, their relationship towards history and their homeland. The project started in 1998 and included 30 children (age 9-14) from the camps Shatila and Borj Al-Barajneh in Lebanon. Their work is touring and engaging children around the world.
The project developed into a biennial children’s festival in Beirut – “Children on the margin create films” that shows videos and photo-voice projects made by children from around the world. The project was realised in co-operation with the NGOs Beit Atfal Al-Soumoud, Najdeh Association, and Women Humanitarian organisation. The Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri, who also grew up in the Lebanese exile and works closely together with Al – Jana , explored in her films “Children of Shatila” (1998) and “Frontiers of Dreams and Fears” (2001) the meaning of memory, imagination and identity for a generation of refugee children.
“Eye to Eye”
Save the Children Fund, London
presented by Peter Fryer, photographic co-ordinator
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk
Save the Children UK works in 70 countries helping children in the world's most impoverished communities. It is part of the International Save the Children Alliance. As part of a Middle East programme, Save the Children UK supports the right of Palestinian children and provides a programme of practical projects in the region of Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. “Eye to Eye” is an innovative, multi-media project based on a series of photographic workshops (1999-2002) in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories (OPT). The children, aged 9-16, who are the fourth generation of Palestinian refugees, are capturing their everyday lives on film and exploring their identity, environment and community within the framework of children’s rights. The project was developed specifically for allowing Palestinian children, who are isolated within refugee camps with little means of communicating to the outside world, to express themselves creatively and share their work with their peers around the world. This has resulted in extensive worldwide exhibitions and an accompanying web site, which supports the exchange between children in the Palestinian refugee camps with children around the world. The photographer Peter Fryer helped to develop this project. “Exposure”
Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem
presented by Jack Persekian, director and curator
www.almamalfoundation.org Established in Jerusalem in 1997, Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art initiates and supports art projects and programmes with the local community involving both local and internationals artists. Al- Ma’mal facilitates the dissemination of information about art and opens possibilities for cultural exchange with people from different parts of the world. For the past two years the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem has been hosting and supervising the project “Exposure” whereby professional photographers have taught Palestinian children and teenagers the art and techniques of photography. The photography workshops were realised with the co-operation of youth clubs and community centres in Jerusalem. The youths were supplied with cameras, films, and photographic materials that enabled them to document their own lives and their own visions. The photography programme brings together students from different backgrounds and different parts of the city. It develops a cultural infrastructure and aims to revive cultural life in Jerusalem.
“Open Studio”
Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
presented by William Wells, gallerist
www.thetownhousegallery.com
The Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art was founded in 1998 as a space for independent arts, aimed at promoting contemporary arab arts within the region as well as internationally. The Gallery serves as a platform for a variety of aesthetic categories, while it encourages the intervention of artists in the conception of space as a visual tool. The three-floor main building, the adjoining annex and the new gallery space house exhibition halls showcasing new contemporary works, classrooms, a library and six studios. The gallery hosts theatre and experimental music performances, as well as film screenings and public lectures. To enhance to communication between the visitors and the artists an “Open Studio” was created in the third floor of the building. In the frame of the Open Studio, artists in residence have initiated different projects, which involved the surrounding and engaged the community into the art process. Meanwhile the community takes active part in the gallery programme and started to create their own exhibitions. „With Different Eyes“ Children photograph the war in the Kosovo
MaikäferFlieg e.V., Kosovo/Berlin
presented by Maren Niemeyer, journalist, project co-ordinator
www.maikaeferflieg.de In March 1999 using "The eyes of children see more" as a motto, a group of students, teachers and artists from Berlin started a painting project with children from the Kosovo. In refugee homes in Berlin and in Macedonian refugee camps, Albanian children were encouraged to draw and paint their experiences of the previous weeks and months. The resulting pictures and drawings expressively portray the children’s perception of war. After the end of the war, the project was expanded by the medium of photography. School children in Prishtina, Prizren and Djakova were given disposable cameras to record their daily life in the destroyed Kosovo. The instruction was "show us how you live, photograph whatever is important to you."
The children photographed their daily lifestyles in the revived towns and destroyed mountain villages, guarded and protected by KFOR soldiers, torn between fright, hope and the desire for a normal life. The collection of the children’s pictures consists of nearly 400 drawings and 1,700 photographs. Since April 2000 parts of this collection have been shown in the travelling exhibition "With Different Eyes" in various cities across Europe. By the production of the pictures and photographs MaikäferFlieg e.V. tries to help these traumatised children to cope with their experience and to give them the feeling that something is actively being done to rebuild their destroyed home. Using the proceeds of the exhibition "With Different Eyes" a kindergarten will be built in Prizren, a light and roomy building, which radiates an atmosphere of peace and protection. The project will be put into practice in co-operation with students from the Architecture Faculty of the Bauhaus University Weimar and the University of Prishtina. “Imagine” A world-wide photography project with children and young people
German Association for Technical Development (GTZ), Berlin
presented by Philipp Abresch, journalist
www.imagine.gtz.de The international youth photography project “Imagine – your photos will open my eyes” was organized by the GTZ, a government-owned corporation for international cooperation and the journalist Philipp Abresch. The project aims to contribute to encounter and exchange and to open the door to sustained interaction with other life realities and cultures.
On April 30th, 2002 more than 500 children and young people set out to photograph a day in their lives. In 45 countries on every continent they captured images of what was important to them so they could tell "their story" to others.
The young photographers chose their three favourite pictures and sent them to the "Imagine" team at the GTZ office in Berlin. With the help of a children's jury, an exhibition was created from more than 1,500 pictures, to be shown in the participating countries, including Germany. The exhibition consists of three cycles with 80 photographs each, hanging from a taut line: a metaphor for the human relations to be created among the young people.
Additionally, a project website offers the kids to exchange their views about photos and to form a network with one another. EinBlicke/InSights – Intercultural Photo project by Youth
Network Migration in Europe e.V.
Presented by Andrea Schmelz, Project manager (in cooperation with Anne von Oswald)
www.ein-blicke.de and www.network-migration.org In the photo project "EinBlicke/InSights", youth from many different backgrounds learn about their own surroundings with a camera. Living with various cultures is normal for young people, especially in large cities. In September 2002, 25 young people in Berlin between the ages of 16-19 were set out with cameras. Most important was the curiosity of discovering and searching for views of their own lives, family, neighborhood, and their closest friends. Over 3,000 photos have come out of the project. They show individual views from the young people, and are an excellent way of showing something about themselves to others. Throughout 2003, more projects from young people in Budapest and Amsterdam will follow. The photo project "EinBlicke/InSights" in connection with the Netzwerk Migration e.V. and the young people would like to encourage inter- and transcultural dialogue
- through discussions about everyday life experiences and problems of living together in an intercultural society.
- through debate about "me/us" and "the others", to question opinions and stereotypes and to raise the awareness of limitations/delimitations.
- through reflection of their own identity in a pluralistic Europe.
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