Photovoice Workshop: Gender, Youth and HIV/AIDS
The photovoice workshop was a follow up to a presentation on the structural determinants of HIV risk from a gender and global perspective. Participants were members of the New College, Youth Advisory Board for the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) Project, University of Toronto. Youth were given disposable cameras and asked to work in small groups to take photographs that reflected ideas and/or issues about gender and HIV/AIDS raised in the presentation. When the photos were developed, each group was asked to write about their images using the following questions as a guide: 1) What is happening in this photo? 2) Why did you take this photo? 3) How does this photo relate to gender and HIV/AIDS 4) What is a good caption for your photo? All photos were then displayed on a large blank mural with room for all workshop participants to comment on the images produced by other groups.
Follow-up Exercise:
As we prepared to exhibit the photos we offered the photographers an opportunity to reflect further on their images and to add to their initial writing piece. We designed the following exercise as a guide:
Take a piece of paper or cardboard and make a square. Cut a square out of it. So that you have this:
You can scan different areas of your photograph through this viewfinder to bring them into focus for your writing.
Is there a part of the photograph that really moves you, maybe even in an unexpected way? Could you write about in detail about that?
Set yourself a time limit, maybe 10 minutes. Write anything that comes into your mind, write about whatever you can: describe it, any mood that arrives from within it…
Photographs are full of things that might be obvious to the photographer but not to the viewer. How would you describe the photograph to someone who was looking at it but not really "getting it?"
Fill in the blank: I hope the viewer will think about… when they see the photograph.
Imagine yourself in the photograph-write from this changed perspective (maybe you're in the trees -bird's eye view-, a piece of sidewalk -worm's eye view-, someone looking out a window from a building in the photograph…).
What kinds of questions do you hope the viewer would ask themselves when looking at the photograph? How would you answer those?
Does the photograph pull you strongly to one area-does one area dominate your imagination? Write about the area that you tend not to go toward.
Remember if you've got a way into the photograph and none of these work, always use what works for you.
Seeing for ourselves: Visual methodologies for self-study with teachers in addressing HIV/AIDS
Goal and Objectives: This project will address two main facts of life in rural KZN in South Africa: (1) death and dying as a result of HIV/AIDS, and (2) a paucity of solutions that recognize the pivotal position of teachers as both infected and affected by AIDS. Although teachers are potential key players in transforming communities from sites of weekly funerals to sites of change, to date, they have not figured prominently (as solutions at least) in the AIDS crisis in South Africa, even though Education itself has been seen as central to the transformation process of the post-apartheid era. The specific objectives of the project include the following:
1. To explore the role of visual arts-based methodologies (particularly photo-voice and video documentary) in facilitating teachers' own self-study in relation to addressing issues around HIV/AIDS in their local school communities;
2. To explore the ways in which visual arts-based approaches to self-study can become a point of entry for teachers to embark upon a 'taking action' role in curriculum and community development in relation to HIV and AIDS;
3. To advance the study of visual arts-based methodologies in education, focusing on both technical and ethical issues in relation to documentation and visual data.