The Photography Workshop at Gisimba Memorial Center
When I first visited Rwanda in the summer of 2005, Eddie Gartz, Founder/Director of KODAK'S SNAPFoundation gave me 50 disposable cameras to share with the children at Gisimba Orphanage on the outskirts of Kigali. Eddie had read about my desire to share photography with orphans from a little blurb written about me in The Florida Sun Sentinel Travel Section. After I returned home to Arizona from Africa, a college friend, Lance Cameron, suggested I join Flickr, which I tentatively did in October 2005. Almost immediately I received inquiries about my photographs as well as the people in them.
My trip to Rwanda resonated with many people, among them Professor Jill Scott.
"It is about the lightness of being, about the lightness of the kids, whether they were in front of the camera, with the camera, or off-frame, There's a lightness that happens when people are being creative. Art is available to us, totally available. That is light, joyful, amazing to be part of" (King Interview, page 136).
[King's] photography project was not part of any officially sanctioned transitional justice process. She went to Rwanda with cameras and her goodwill. But her work with the children there has nonetheless supplemented and supported the existing mechanisms for justice and social change in Rwanda. It is one example of how small initiatives can make a difference in the lives of the disenfranchised. Photography allowed the children of Gisimba Orphanage to make meaning out of their lives, express the value of these meanings, and document these expressions in creative ways. Of the project, [King] writes "cameras build community, encourage peace and play, and help children, such as the orphans pictured here, not just survive, but THRIVE.
{King] talks about the ethical responsibility of working in a developing country, and has been at pains to communicate that neither the photography project nor the photographs belong to her, but that it is the children who make art happen. She seeks to "inspire a deeper discourse about indifference" to global inequities and to inspire others to take action. The camera really does connect people and build community, [King] also knows that it is a coke bottle in Africa: new, intimidating and potentially disruptive(King Interview, page 139).
...I continue to believe in the power of creative expressions, including the product's of [King's] photography project, to foster reconciliation and even forgiveness in ways that extend beyond the scope of reason. It takes courage, optimism, and even a little bit of madness to think that photography can heal the yawning wounds of genocide, but if one does not dare to dream, the dream won't dare to happen. [King] says: "This is peace-building--one tiny human connection at a time"(King Interview, page 140).
[Excerpted from an article, "Photography and Forgiveness" (Queen's Quarterly, Canada, 2006, later published in A Poetics of Forgiveness: Cultural Responses to Conflict. New York: Palgrave, 2010.
Jill Scott, Associate Professor, German Department, Queen's University. You can find this extraordinary thinker here: http://www.queensu.ca/german/department/facultyandstaff/scott.html]
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I am hoping to exhibit the children's photographs from the 2nd Photography Workshop at Gisimba Memorial Centre.
My trip to Rwanda resonated with many people, among them Professor Jill Scott.
"It is about the lightness of being, about the lightness of the kids, whether they were in front of the camera, with the camera, or off-frame, There's a lightness that happens when people are being creative. Art is available to us, totally available. That is light, joyful, amazing to be part of" (King Interview, page 136).
[King's] photography project was not part of any officially sanctioned transitional justice process. She went to Rwanda with cameras and her goodwill. But her work with the children there has nonetheless supplemented and supported the existing mechanisms for justice and social change in Rwanda. It is one example of how small initiatives can make a difference in the lives of the disenfranchised. Photography allowed the children of Gisimba Orphanage to make meaning out of their lives, express the value of these meanings, and document these expressions in creative ways. Of the project, [King] writes "cameras build community, encourage peace and play, and help children, such as the orphans pictured here, not just survive, but THRIVE.
{King] talks about the ethical responsibility of working in a developing country, and has been at pains to communicate that neither the photography project nor the photographs belong to her, but that it is the children who make art happen. She seeks to "inspire a deeper discourse about indifference" to global inequities and to inspire others to take action. The camera really does connect people and build community, [King] also knows that it is a coke bottle in Africa: new, intimidating and potentially disruptive(King Interview, page 139).
...I continue to believe in the power of creative expressions, including the product's of [King's] photography project, to foster reconciliation and even forgiveness in ways that extend beyond the scope of reason. It takes courage, optimism, and even a little bit of madness to think that photography can heal the yawning wounds of genocide, but if one does not dare to dream, the dream won't dare to happen. [King] says: "This is peace-building--one tiny human connection at a time"(King Interview, page 140).
[Excerpted from an article, "Photography and Forgiveness" (Queen's Quarterly, Canada, 2006, later published in A Poetics of Forgiveness: Cultural Responses to Conflict. New York: Palgrave, 2010.
Jill Scott, Associate Professor, German Department, Queen's University. You can find this extraordinary thinker here: http://www.queensu.ca/german/department/facultyandstaff/scott.html]
_________________________________________________________________________
I am hoping to exhibit the children's photographs from the 2nd Photography Workshop at Gisimba Memorial Centre.
