Since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the slow process of rebuilding has progressed, a number of new collaborative media making projects have gotten underway around the city. The New Orleans Kid Camera Project started in 2006 when Joanna Rosenthal & Cat Malovic, both trained as social workers, were looking for a way to...
Most projects that set out to facilitate community participation in the creation of representations – be it for social justice advocacy; health and wellbeing; or cultural documentation – do so with a belief that participation in the making of representations about ones own community or culture can be empowering and re-construct power dynamics and...
In my ongoing research about practices and experiences in projects that unite collaborative art and collaborative ethnographic practices the topic of ethics has come up time and time again, mostly in discussions with project facilitators who find themselves face to face with ethical dilemmas which were unanticipated at the outset of their work. From...
All sorts of interesting collaborative art/social change/community doco work has been going on in various parts of Africa for many years – I recall several years ago at the first 2 Fires Conference in Braidwood NSW (Australia) meeting a woman who had been facilitating participatory art projects with AIDS orphans with fascinating result… HIV...
Check out another project from the Pacific region – this one going on in Papua New Guinea – in a settlement near Port Moresby called 8 Mile. 8 Mile Settlement project is a nice example of an increasingly popular approach to community development – using creative arts (painting, photography, storytelling and traditional weaving) to empower...
If you are interested in the intersection of arts and politics, arts activism and theatre, or even just interesting grassroots and community movements in the Americas, check out the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. In 2008 this institute opened a centre in San Cristobal De Las Casas, Chipas, in collaboration with Fortaleza de...