What Inspires Us was a photography-based project in which 12 grade 11 students from Scott Collegiate were taught the photographic arts as a vehicle for self-expression. The classes consisted of four weeks of introduction to photography and photographers, camera instruction, elements of composition and computer editing, and photojournalism. The following four weeks consist of photography field trips into the community, coupled with creating story-boards and photo-essays relating to the issues the youth experience in their lives, ‘speaking out’ through photography.
Expressive arts such as photography have been historically played a key role in civically engaging people. Youth often lack safe and supportive environments where they can talk about their experiences and express their ideas, hopes and fears. This project hopes to engage the participating youth as individuals and as a group by introducing them to methods that help them to express themselves, to release some of the stories and images they have within them, and to forge a common bond with each other in the sharing and shaping of their common stories. The effect of this is to validate the personal expressions of a marginalized community, and to produce work that becomes part of the social-issue documentary ‘canon’: one which takes engagement of media-maker, subject and audience as a serious and necessary interaction in democratic culture.
