Captured photos reflect many voices

By Eddie B. Allen Jr.

A skinny, shirtless teenager stands on a porch delivering a silent, but powerful, message. Both his hands are raised, fingers interlocked, the shape of a gang symbol.

His facial expression is carved in anger, although fear may be present just beneath the surface.

The Southwest Detroit youth’s image is one of the most striking in an exhibit by participants in the University of Michigan Technical Assistance Center’s Photovoice Project, which was funded by a Skillman Foundation grant and is part of its 10-year, $100 million Good Neighborhoods program. Like its subject in the photograph, the larger exhibition offers a glimpse of the vulnerability and challenges present in the community that it reflects. Fifty middle-school to college-aged participants were hired to capture the featured images.

Photos by Paul Engstrom/Skillman Foundation Brightmoor's Andrew Moore, 19, talks about his photos to Lucinda Hawkins, director of the Trinity Community Development Center in Brightmoor.

“This is their reality,” says Dr. Larry Gant, U-M sociology professor and supervisor of the Project. “One of the neat things about the Photovoice piece is that it’s not founded in pathology, it’s founded on what’s salient in their community.”

Photovoice recruited teenagers and young adults into a summer employment program to chronicle subjects from Skillman’s Good Neighborhoods regions of Detroit. Good Neighborhoods represent the sub-communities of Chadsey/Condon, Vernor, Brightmoor, Osborn, North End/Central and Cody/Rouge, which host the city’s largest population of children.

Conceived as a social justice technique to record cultural and environmental transformation, Photovoice has been used in communities as far away as China. Local participants were given general photography tips and instructed to shoot images, according to an “action plan” designed around such community concerns as education, crime and safety, youth and health. The novice photojournalists later created exhibition guide narratives describing their encounters and the backgrounds of each photo.

“I wanted my community to look better than what it does,” Kira Davis, 16, says of her motivation to participate in the Project. Among the images she captured are an abandoned house and an aged, fallen tree near her 23rd and Buchanan " 'hood.”

Lancine Norris, 21, says she was similarly inspired, snapping shots of relatives who posed in a lot near a “Children Matter Here” sign. She also captured an image that symbolizes her family’s devotion to the community: the boarded-up restaurant that her recently deceased grandfather once owned. Her family plans to re-open it soon.

“My average day is pleasant, but, at the same time, scary,” says Norris, who escaped a stranger’s attack last year. “We can’t help where we’re from, and when people come from out of town and talk about how there’s nothing there (in the Vernor area), it really hurts my feelings.”

Photovoice participants like Norris began a natural transformation into community activists, says project manager Pat Miller. She and support staff, including U-M graduate intern Kate Shimshock, directed the program from the university’s Detroit center on Woodward Avenue.

“It was a very powerful experience for them,” Miller adds, “and I think that’s why they invited the (TV) Fox 2 ‘Problem Solvers,’ and the mayor, and city council and … ”

“Obama,” Shimshock interjects.

None of the requested dignitaries attended Photovoice exhibits, but their absence didn’t discourage the photographers; Shimshock says the Project served as a training model that the participants can take back and teach to others in their neighborhoods.

“That’s what Photovoice is all about – encouraging them to take action in their community,” Shimshock adds.

The Osborn Group (from left): Tony Richardson, 16; Allesha Grier, 16; DeMarco Richardson, 17; La'Schelle Hollien, 17; David Thomas, 16; Kyle Smith, 17 (front); Bianca Hollien, 20; Robert Tucker, 19; and Brandon Hill, 17.

The Project’s next phase includes a forum where the young adults and teenagers who participated in the photo assignments discuss empowerment strategies based on their exhibits. Feedback from the discussion will be collected and used at the direction of participants, Gant says.

“For the kids who’ve never done anything like this and had nothing in their background that prepared them for it, this was huge,” he adds.

“The goal is to build community capacity. We plant the seed.”

Chuck Glass (above), 18, from the Northend, talks about his photos to Ashley Purnell, a Photovoice project facilitator. Karen Bolson (below), chair of the Farmington Multicultural Multiracial Community Council, listens as Chevez Graham, 17, from Cody/Rouge explains his photos with his brother, Rolando, 16, looking on.