The Healing Art of Photography


Sometimes you pick up a book that changes the course of your life.

This happened to me when I chanced upon a book called
"God is at Eye Level - Photography as a Healing Art" by Jan Phillips. 
http://www.janphillips.com/            
Jan describes the transformative power of photography in these words:
        "Carl Jung wrote that in the process of giving shape to archetypal images, we find our way back to our deepest, truest selves.  In the course of manifesting what we hold within, of transforming spirit and ideas into matter and language, we experience the holy delight of creation.  And as we give form to spirit, so we are informed by it and healed by it.  As we express Divine through art, so do we experience the Divine within.
        Photography, I discovered, is as much about seeing inside ourselves as it is about looking out at the world.  All creative activity joins spirit to matter and so can transform.  But photography is special.  It is all about focus and attention, image and shadow, figure and ground, darkness and light".

Over the last few years I have discovered this to be true for myself.  I think this is why I was so touched when I recently visited the "Freedom Box" exhibition at the Light Factory in Charlotte, NC (http://www.lightfactory.org/) and saw and read about the photography work done by students from a high school in Cape Town, South Africa. 
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The co-ordinator of the project, Siona O'Connell, says this about the background of the project:    
  "I asked the principal for a group - and as the school year was drawing to a close, it was agreed that I would  ask the Grade 9 D learners if they would want to participate - after school hours. I was warned that attendance for extra mural activities was poor at best, and not to be disconcerted if they group dwindled to a few by the end of the project. The class was made of Black and Coloured learners (between the ages of 15 - 19) with  60 percent of the class being Black  and all economically disadvantaged. It has to be noted that this was the weakest Grade 9 class academically, with the majority not having English as their mother tongue.

Contrary to the prevailing pessimism concerning the attendance, all 43 signed up, and  all 43 completed the course, even  to the extent of attending a walkabout of District 6 - an iconic area in terms of forced removals (on a Saturday, and the 2nd day of  Eid, (an important Muslim religious day).

 I gave ownership of the project to the students  - emphasising that they alone could make a success of it - and stressed repeatedly that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  They learnt to work as a group - and the enthusiasm for the language of photography was infectious.  99% of them had never held a camera before - and they spent the first photographic session taking pictures of each other.

 This was the impetus needed - the loud laughter and pride echoed in the school quad when I brought the pictures to them the following day. The class was now no longer the academically challenged of the school  - they were The Photography Students, whose work was Going To America.  I was inundated by requests by other classes to accept them on the program. The teachers all commented on a new found pride in the group - with positive spin-offs for the rest of their lessons. The language of photography allowed these students, who struggle to convey their thoughts in the written medium, to say what they wanted to say in an eloquent manner.

 As the school does not have internet facilities for the students, they decided, on their own initiative to connect at the local library. They corresponded with some of their counterparts in the participating US schools - and for the first time, the boundaries and restrictions of their world stretched as far as the US.

 The work selected shows the world of these students.  To many of them, the Rainbow Nation is a myth, a farce.  Their lives are still segregated, with many not having access to electricity and water. HIV/AIDS is real to them - many of them having first hand experience of the disease. They travel long distances on dodgy transport in order to get to school - and the reality of their lives reflects the paradox of the Freedom Charter and the new South Africa. They chose to reflect this in the emptiness of the inners of the boxes - integration to them, is to a large degree,  just the words on a photocopy of the Freedom Charter.

 We have discovered quite a few talents - and the spin-offs of this project for all of us, far exceeds the pictures glued to the Freedom Boxes. "
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Siona has now embarked on a new project  working with youth who are HIV positive.  One aspect of this project includes teaching photographic skills to the group so they may document their journey through photographs as well as written journals.
  " There has been little, if any,  photographic coverage of HIV/AIDS by sufferers themselves. In contrast, this project gives ownership of the medium to the group, allowing a first hand documentation of  their lives. Exposure in the form of exhibitions  will give the project further recognition, and viewers of this will be exposed to HIV/AIDS photography from a new perspective."
The group will be taught black and white photography, including dark room operations.  At the end of the project there will be an exhibition showing journals and photographs which will be shown locally and then will be shown in Charlotte, NC at The Light Factory.


The students have very little to work with in the way of equipment.  The Freedom Box project was done with a few point and shoot cameras.  I have just moved from film to digital and have an SLR camera I know will be more useful to these students than to me sitting on my shelf just in case I might use it.  I am hoping that  there might be others who are in the same situation and would like to make a difference to Siona's students.  If you can help  please contact me at cathy@catherineandersonstudio.com.  I am happy to collect the equipment and arrange for shipment to South Africa as mailing costs are expensive.  If you would rather liase with Siona direct, let me know and I will give you her contact details.  I really believe in the power of photography to make a difference.

 


“If everyone helps to hold up the sky,

then one person does not become tired”

African Proverb