Youth Media Visions
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Conversations Across Cultures Youth Media Visions Conversations Across Cultures Youth Media Visions Exploring the pedagogic potentialities of learning with and from media produced by young people. Curated by Laia Solé and Jordi Torrent Symposium & Workshop: April 12 - 14, 2013 Macy Art Gallery Exhibit: April 12 - 19, 2013 Organized by Teachers College-Columbia University in partnership with United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Contents 6 Introduction 8 Forward 16 Wakiponi Mobile 24 A Bao A Qu 34 The OneMinutesJr. 44 CHINH 54 The Educational Video Center 64 Fundación Kine 72 PLURAL+ 76 The Workshop 79 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction by Laia Sole and Jordi Torrent Youth Media Visions is intended to be a useful resource for tion, and the third was a daylong workshop involving gradu- people interested in exploring the intersection of youth me- ate students from Teachers College’s Art & Art Education dia, education and creation. It presents seven experiences Program. developed by educators and media creators, who within their organizations work with young people and media pro- This publication is an attempt to document the scope of the duction. symposium, but certainly some important aspects of that collective experience will be lost; such as the opening event The book is the result of a Conversations Across Cultures: of the symposium by City Kids, a New York City-based orga- Youth Media Visions, an international symposium that in- nization working with youth on art and performance.1 cluded an exhibition and workshop for educators. The sym- posium was co-organized by Teachers College Columbia One of the common threads among the organizations par- University and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, ticipating in Youth Media Visions is mobility. All of them and was held in April 2013. Its main purpose was to explore share an expressed interest to reach out to communities that the pedagogic potentialities of learning with and from me- are far, and at risk of being excluded, from the “central areas” dia in formal and informal educational settings. Seven or- where educational institutions and resources are more easily ganizations representing different areas of the world were available. invited to participate. They develop youth media production initiatives as a way to address social issues relevant to their Mobility, for example, enables Wapikoni Mobile to reach communities, such as diversity, migration and social inclu- First Nation communities in Quebec with their traveling sion. Each of the participating organizations was invited to studio. Chinh’s project Rural Media Literacy project engages contribute an article to this publication. nomadic children in the Rajasthan region of India. UNICEF’s One Minute Jr. initiative conducts youth media production The symposium included three different components. One workshops across the world. Fundación Kine brings media was the exhibition of 42 videos produced by the participat- education to rural areas of Argentina. PLURAL+ provides a ing organizations; a selection of these videos can be viewed platform of distribution for youth media produced outside of at http://milunesco.unaoc.org/youthmediavisions. A second the “central areas”. were the presentations and discussions led by each organiza- 7 Cinema en Curs (Spain) and Educational Video Center cultural and media expressions as an antidote to the per- (USA), the other two participating organizations, address ceived “homogenization” possibly developed by globaliza- mobility from a wider understanding: as a quality inherent tion of contemporary societies. These pedagogical exercises to education and media production. are energizers of cultural diversity. The capacity to mobilize, to help youth bring out their vi- As participants in the “informational society”, youth are sions and opinions is at the root of the word “education”. digital users, creators and consumers. The most avid media As professor Joan Ferrés2 has pointed out, in Latin e-ducere makers today are not professionals, but young people who means to draw forth or bring out something that is potential are actively engaging with their worlds. Contemporary me- or latent in the individual. Cinema en curs, through their dia offer unprecedented opportunities to generate and dis- work in the formal educational system in Spain, gives access tribute information, motivating young people and facilitat- to creation and culture to children and youth. Educational ing interaction. Knowledge is not longer something that is Video Center works in New York City with under-served kept and then transmitted to students, but something that youth mentoring them in the creation and dissemination of can be collectively created and shared. We hope that Youth their media work. Media Visions contributes to the further development of youth media in formal and informal educational settings. It could be argued that what the camera has captured in the We believe that media education and youth media produc- videos included in Youth Media Visions was already there tion are fundamental to development of educational systems but not yet truly visible to audiences. The work of all the par- that reflect the changes in contemporary societies. ticipant organizations helps young people to identify, select, frame and make visible how they engage with their commu- 1. For more information about City Kids, visit www.citykids.com nities. The resulting videos manifest how young media pro- 2. Ferrés, Joan. (2008). La educación como industria del deseo. Barcelona: ducers position themselves in their own society. Gedisa Bringing media literacy education to contexts that are far from decision-making centers or at risk of being excluded from them, empowers young people to develop their own 8 Foreword Hello! When is your birthday? What is a birthday? When you were born? How would I know, I wasn’t born yet? Do you have cake on your birthday? What is cake? This short snippet extracted from a longer conversation between an urban seven-year-old and her nomadic peer, makes us smile. That is, we smile before we realize that in this short interchange we see the roots of the most complex cultural tensions and misunderstandings that play out in to- day’s world. Among children difference is something to be explored openly with wonder, imagination and curiosity, that is before their cultures impose upon them hierarchies of value, power and uncertainty. It is from children and youth and, if we open our hearts perhaps, that we might learn again how to look at the world and each other with care and concern, as if things might be different. Youth Media Visions, the theme of our Conversations Across Cultures symposium of 2013, offered us hope and also in- sight into how underserved young people from cultures around the world explore their lives through the lenses of video cameras. These particular visions were made from the fabric of youngster’s everyday worlds and captured in im- 9 ages made in collage, drawing, painting, clay and scrap, and orative experimentation and on the spot learning resulting music born from blowing, banging and stroking discarded in breathtaking, joyful and, often, heart-breaking images. objects such as plastic bottles, wood, paper and string. In- ventive combinations of personal artwork and music in- It was a great privilege to co-sponsor this important and terplayed with shots of the real world of everyday through moving event with the United Nations Alliance of Civiliza- which we, as audience, encountered how personal identities tions. On behalf of Teachers College and the Art and Art Ed- are formed, relationships established, difficulties and prob- ucation Program, I would like to thank His Excellency Mr. lems noted and either overcome or consigned to the patina Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser of UNAOC and President Susan of everyday actualities. As these young people peered into Fuhrman of TC for their support and interest in this project. the lenses of their video cameras and gave each other point- To Jordi Torrent of UNAOC and Laia Sole of TC without ers for shots and angles, they gave us visions as compelling whose hard work, collaboration and inspiration none of this and complex as those of Sundance and Hollywood. would have been possible. To City Kids of New York whose imaginative performance thrilled and delighted us; we hope While the video voices we heard and saw were those of you will return to inspire us again. To the representatives young people, these voices had been empowered by grown- of the cultural organizations and through them the young ups dedicated to the belief that contemporary media offers people of the world, your fight against prejudice and indif- both makers and audiences insights they otherwise would ference inspires us to do better; thank you. not have. This is not the media of entertainment and super- ficiality but a way of looking on the world that invites us as Judith M. Burton audience to become conscious of what the daily routines Teachers College of our lives too often obscure. The generous spirits of these April, 2014 grown-ups whose organizations and professional know-how empowered the experiences documented in these pages and gave dramatic and vivid life to our symposium, suggested the power of art-media education. Offering a minimum of instruction and then standing back to allow young videogra- phers to work their magic, allowed for a great deal of collab- EXHIBITION - OPENING RECEPTION (From L to R): Meenakshi Rai, Jordi Torrent, Judith Burton, Vinay Rai, H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, Mrs. Muna Rihani Teachers College President Susan H. Fuhrman welcoming the participants at the opening ceremony. City Kids performing at the opening ceremony. 13 14 15 QUEBEC WAPIKONI MOBILE BY MYLÈNE GUAY, MELISSA MOLLEN DUPUIS, MANON BARBEAU 17 Genesis (the story) tic skills, and to allow them to be heard and to shine by their The concept of the Wapikoni mobile emerged in the Ati- works in their own communities and throughout the world.