About Exposures

About the Program

Exposures is a cross-cultural exchange program that establishes the arts as a common language among youth from diverse communities. Programming is based in artistic collaboration and exchange, and is intended to facilitate creative cross-cultural dialogue and experiences that lead to a better understanding of our diverse communities and cultures.

“I learned from each moment, each day, and each conversation... More than anything, I felt a part of something, like I was working towards something real, something that mattered.”

- Exposures Participant From Vermont

Exchanges

Exposures works with groups and educators in partnering locations to offer Exchange programming designed to instigate meaningful, creative conversation among youth from distinct geographic and cultural regions. Through fall and spring classes in their home communities, youth in Exposures Exchange programs learn photography skills to document their experiences, cultures and communities, and collaborate with youth in other participating locations through an online gallery and forum in which they share and respond to one another’s creative works. Exchange programming is intended to generate continuous connections and ongoing creative dialogue between participating youth and communities. Exchanges also serve as an opportunity for participants to explore their interest in Exposures’ Summer Program, which is an application-based opportunity open to those who participate in the Exchange.

Summer Programs

Exposures Summer programs bring youth together for intensive arts and cultural programming in the context of a host community. The curriculum combines creative learning and practice with experiential activities, participation in community and cultural events, and trips to explore and photograph the landscape. Prior to the Summer program youth begin initial assignments which serve as a means of introducing themselves, their stories and their communities to one another. Participants then come together in the program host community where they generate a rich inter-cultural dialogue as travelers and local youth work together to learn artistic techniques, create collaborative projects and share and develop their perspectives of place, community and culture.

The curriculum incorporates photography and other arts, which have included creative writing, collage, book making, interviewing, audio production, and mask making.

Through this curriculum youth develop collaborative artistic projects based in their engagement with the place, community and culture of the host community. At the close of the program, participants host a community event where they present their creative achievements, and select works to be included in online and traveling exhibits that bring their works to wider audiences throughout the year.

Exhibits have been held on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota at Little Wound School, Billy Mills Hall, Big Bat's Convenience Store, and Youth Opportunity Movement; in Vermont at Hooker Dunham Gallery, River Garden, In-Sight Photography Project, Vermont Arts Council, and Amy's Bakery Arts Café; in New York at Calumet Photographic, the International Center for Photography at The Point and Arts for Peace; and at Video Machete and Street-Level Youth Media in Chicago, Illinois.

Primary projects are designed as collaborative endeavors in Exposures' host communities. Participants are introduced to a variety of photographic techniques such as making portraits, composing landscapes, documenting events to develop photo-stories, and printing photographs onto cloth for the creation of photographic quilts. Staff, regional hosts and guest artists complement these techniques as they facilitate artistic and cultural workshops linked to daily project fieldwork specific to the local community, culture and landscape.

In past programs, participants have learned to create black and white images using large format view cameras and Polaroid 55 film, which produces both a print and a negative. Groups set up portable studios and worked together to develop a portrait of the community as they visited local meeting grounds and attended events where they met and offered free portraits to local individuals, families and friends. Subjects received prints at the time and participants later learned to use the negatives to create photographic prints on cloth. Quilt makers sew these and other images, as well as participants’ writings and designs, into quilts which offer a glimpse of the host community and the experience of the Exposures group.

“I learned so much about photography, people, culture, history, humanity, and so much about myself... I learned and taught something everyday I was away from home.”

- Exposures Participant From New York City

Contact us at info@exposuresprogram.org with program inquiries, or sign up for our mailing list to receive announcements about upcoming events and opportunities.

Mission

Exposures is designed to increase dialogue about and understanding of our cultural and personal stories. Guided by the principle that positive social and economic change rests on a foundation of understanding and respect, particularly of varied communities and cultures, Exposures creates opportunities essential for youth to cross geographic and cultural borders as they develop and exchange their perspectives, experiences and artistic skills. Utilizing photography and other arts as a common language, participants from diverse landscapes and communities develop a visual and analytical vocabulary for apprehending their own experience and that of others, and together experience the facility of these tools for personal and cultural expression. Exposures participants are inspired to collaboratively realize their assets, voice their perspectives and experience their capability in contributing to arts, culture and social dialogue.

“The diversity Exposures has put together has taught me so much.”

- Exposures Participant From Arizona

History

Exposures was developed collaboratively by directors of The In-Sight Photography Project and the Hall Farm Center, both Vermont-based non profit arts organizations. Programming began in 2001 with a retreat in southern Vermont for young photographers from In-Sight (Brattleboro, Vermont) and International Center for Photography at The Point (Bronx, NY). The days were filled with making, thinking and talking about images, walks in the woods, spontaneous break dancing lessons, and deeper discussions of personal responses and losses in relation to the attacks of September 11th. During the same period, Exposures also began to work with youth organizations on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, assisting with the implementation of photography programming for youth on the reservation and forming relationships within the community.

The inspiration of these initial programs and partnerships resulted in the development of Exposures' Summer programming bringing together youth from various locations for intensive programs exploring arts and culture within the context of a host community. Between 2003 and 2008 Exposures brought together youth from locations including the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, southern Vermont, New York City, and the Navajo Nation in Arizona in the host community of Pine Ridge. In 2008 participants from each of these locations traveled between Pine Ridge, New York City and southern Vermont. With the addition of Exchange programming in fall 2009, Exposures expanded to offer year-round opportunities for youth participation and collaboration between partnering communities. Since this time Exposures has offered spring and fall Exchange sessions, as well as collaborative Summer Programs on Pine Ridge Reservation.

During summer 2009 Exposures formally became a program of The In-Sight Photography Project. In-Sight provides photography courses to youth across the economic spectrum and provides all materials for every student regardless of their ability to pay class fees. Visit In-Sight’s website to learn more about the organization.

“I learned a lot while I was here. Not only different points of view but also how to be more precise in what I was trying to do. And I met a lot of new, exciting and intelligent people. I am glad they have the program and I hope and want them to come back year after year, for many more years to come.”

- Exposures Participant From South Dakota