Out of the Dark Room

Abstract

Participatory photography places the medium of the camera into the hands of learners to democratize the image-making dynamic and give them the power to show and speak their own realities. This study examines two participatory photography projects in Canada and how they contribute to the lives of disadvantaged women and children. With Through the Eyes of Children, a freestanding, photographic montage was created by 10 homeless children in Victoria, British Columbia. In Toronto, 8 socially disadvantaged women chose photography to explore issues of power and identity in exhibitions of their work and in a calendar,Portraits of Resistance: Celebrating Women's Lives. Although there are limitations to this method of transformative education, the project empowered the photographers to become and be activist artists; see and speak publicly through image, symbol, and metaphor; and creatively address dichotomies, such as that between the private and the public.