ABOUT
THE EXHIBITION & DOCUMENTARY
PROJECT
Life Cycles opens January 2006 as a touring exhibition.
This project will begin its exhibition tour at the University of
California Riverside's California Museum of Photography (UCR/CMP).
The UCR/CMP is a community-based venue that will allow an opportunity
for the participants of this project to experience the Life
Cycles exhibition in a relatively accessible location. The
project will be mounted as a traveling exhibition and will feature
an innovative interactive website installed on a computer station
in the vicinity of the accompanying photographs.
Commitments to subsequent shows have been made by La Sierra University
and Los Angeles Mission College. Additionally, in order to reach diverse
audiences, a 2nd set of images will be created for exhibition at non-traditional
venues such as the United Farm Worker's Union in Coachella Valley.
These reproductions will also be displayed at local community centers,
parks and various K-12 educational institutions in 2007.
How this project can help strengthen community through the use
of storytelling.
California and its famous economic success is found in the stories
of all of its residents; however, the voices of the least powerful
members of this collective prosperity have often been muted and their
stories lost. In some cases, the tragic circumstances these willing
participants lived through were recorded using extreme measures: The
poems literally carved into the walls of the Angel Island immigration
station in San Francisco attest to the imaginative vitality of the
immigrant and migrant worker experience in California, and they help
all Californians understand that experience and see its relationship
to their own. The circulation of these types of stories is vital to
the overall metaphysical health of the state, hence, it is my belief
that this project can also lead to key improvements in the social
situations of the storytellers.
Focusing on creating a critical nexus between colonia residents and
the state of California through oral and visual storytelling is a
major goal of this exhibition. In an effort to raise awareness about
issues and concerns that are common to colonias within the Coachella
Valley, I plan to show a natural connection between this forgotten,
obscure region and the California mainstream. Another major goal will
be to document successful partnerships and community efforts that
educate others with regard to creating "healthier" living
conditions in immigrant and migrant communities. The collection of
images, intimate stories, and oral histories will play a critical
aspect in meeting the goal of strengthening community through the
use of narrative. This project will involve working in collaboration
with EGARC's researchers to help build capacity within colonias, which
in turn will help promote life-long learning skills that benefit future
generations of these communities.
The project's website will further highlight the dynamic role that
technology can play in connecting diverse population in order to enact
positive change at both the local and global levels. The website will
be featured and on UCR/CMP's web server and will have links on the
Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center's "Building Capacity
For The Future/Ecological Health For Our Future" project's website
http://colonias.ucr.edu (soon to be released publicly in early 2005).
Other universities, schools, libraries, and Latino organizations have
expressed an interest in establishing a link on their respective websites
such as: UC Riverside, La Sierra University, the Arizona's Hispanic
Research Center, and the Coachella Unified School District. A major
goal for the website is to establish an online presence that will
offer an opportunity for audiences unable to attend the exhibit to
experience a world that may exist beyond their own awareness.
Project goals include inspiring awareness through diverse audiences.
A major goal for this project involves reaching people of diverse
perspectives and backgrounds in an effort to promote an artistic,
compassionate and humanistic inquiry into the experiences of immigrant
and migrant communities. Reaching diverse communities through partnerships
with representatives from community-based organizations, elected officials,
academic scholars, universities, colleges, K-12 institutions, churches,
artists, photographers, journalists, and interested members in the
greater Inland Empire and Los Angeles County will be an important
mission. More importantly, expanding the project's outreach efforts
beyond the borders of California, into other states and developing
a global audience will be a major goal.
To promote audience diversity this project will be presented at both
traditional and non-traditional venues. Each venue will host an opportunity
to engage a diverse panel of experts, students and members of the
community in the forums and discussions. Brochures will be available
for the participants to share with others members of the community
and this will aid in the project's mission to target and invite new
audiences via community networking strategies.
In a further effort to promote the colonias' desire to improve their
quality of living, educational materials will also be designed and
distributed to help inspire awareness about environmental health.
Alfonso Taboada (project's technology integrator) and a team of researchers
will collaborate on developing related educational materials for distribution
to schools, community centers and libraries.
Ultimately, it is the accessibility of this project in both its
exhibition and online formats that will aid in the dissemination of
the project's personal narratives in an effort to invite dialogue
within the communities that they reach. A major goal is to create
a dialogue that can lead into forums, conferences and other exhibitions
that help further encourage discussions intended to address issues
of social/political content and the need to inspire an awareness that
advocates for social change.
PROJECT'S
DIRECTOR/PHOTOGRAPHER &
WORK IN PROGRESS
RESEARCHERS
& PRODUCTION STAFF
EXHIBITION
& SPONSORS
LIFE
CYCLE'S BLOG
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