About the Program
Exposures is a cross-cultural exchange program that establishes the arts as a common language among youth from diverse communities. Each year youth from Vermont, New York City, the Navajo Tribe in Arizona, and the Oglala Lakota Tribe in South Dakota spend several weeks together participating in the cultural life of a host community and sharing artistic skills and personal experiences with one another.
Since 2003 Exposures’ annual summer program has taken place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In 2008 participants traveled between Pine Ridge, New York City and southern Vermont in a pilot for programming in multiple host communities.
Exposures programming is based in artistic collaboration and cultural exchange. Over several weeks prior to the summer program youth from all four locations 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 they 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, mask making and book making.
Primary projects are designed as collaborative endeavors in Exposures' host communities.
Participants learn to create black and white images using large format view cameras and Polaroid 55 film, which produces both a print and a negative. Groups work together in portable studios to develop a portrait of the community as they visit local meeting grounds and attend events where they meet and offer free portraits to local individuals, families and friends.
Subjects receive prints at the time and participants later learn to use the negatives to create photographic prints on cloth. Quilt makers sew these images, along with participants’ writings and designs, into quilts which offer a glimpse of the host community and the experience of the Exposures group.
“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
Future Programs
In 2009 Exposures is focusing on building organizational capacity and further developing programming partnerships that will provide a solid foundation for our travel programming in 2010. We are preparing to implement an ongoing online exchange in fall 2009, which will lead up to and follow future travel programs. You can sign up for our mailing list to receive announcements about future program 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.
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 as a successful retreat at the Hall Farm in Townshend, Vermont for young photographers from In-Sight (Brattleboro, Vermont) and the International Center for Photography at The Point (Bronx, New York). 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.
Exposures also grew to work with youth organizations on the Pine Ridge Indian 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' annual summer programming bringing together youth from various locations for intensive programs exploring arts and culture within the context of a host community.
The 2003-2007 Exposures programs have taken place on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In 2005 Exposures expanded to include youth from the Navajo Nation in Arizona alongside youth from southern Vermont, New York and Pine Ridge as participants in the program, and in 2008 participants from each of these locations traveled between Pine Ridge, New York City and southern Vermont in a pilot for programming in multiple host communities.
