Abbotsford Youth Photography Workshop

Remember FLIGHT, the photography project last year ran photography workshops for recently arrived refugees and immigrants? Well, Kat Racich and I have been working hard on a follow up to this, and have just wrapped up an 8 week workshop series teaching photography skills to a group of Abbotsford youth. 

The aim of the initiative was to teach youth the basic skills of digital photography and the theory behind using photography as a tool for expression and dialogue. How photography can be a powerful tool for creativity, story telling, social impact, and change. For the group of participants to decide on the theme of and curate their own exhibition at the end of the program, and to gain skills in presenting, public speaking and community building.

We ran the workshops through social enterprises Cameras4Change and recently founded Atomik Change. The Abbotsford City Arts Council facilitated the process and helped to ensure the workshops took place and ran smoothly. 

Results! 

Ten participants (age 11-15) took part in the youth workshops, which included 5x workshops and 2x field trips to local places of interest to practice the photography skills they learnt during the workshops. We had 4 local mentors who were a fantastic support in running the field trips and contributing to all the workshops. In week 3 the participants chose their exhibition theme (‘Life’) and in the run up to the opening night, took photos around how they interpreted the theme, and subsequently chose their top 5 photos to have printed and exhibited. The results were beautiful!

Also - check out the piece The Cascade wrote about the exhibition here!