BRATTLEBORO — For 12 years, the In-Sight Photography Project Exposures Program has brought together youth between the ages of 15 and 21 from around the country for a three-week intensive workshop at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, exploring culture, communication, and photography.
The experience raises awareness of cultural issues for all, including the Lakota participants. It's a challenging program for the youth participants as well as for the adult facilitators. It's not a sanitized experience, but full of the magnificence and distress that can come from consciously stepping out of one's comfort zone.
Our program carries on without regard to what its youth participants can or cannot pay. Fundraising is not a sanitized experience either, but In-Sight is in its 23rd year of realizing its goal of spreading love of the photographic arts, community-mindedness, and the awe-inspiring opening of a young soul to life's wonder.
This collection of images was created by the youth who participated this summer from Vermont, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Arizona, and South Dakota.
They participated in Lakota ceremonies, met with elders and community members, visited Crazy Horse and Rushmore monuments, camped in the Badlands and the Black Hills, went horseback riding, buffalo kissing, and more.
They learned how to create cyanotype images, work with 4x5 view cameras, collect audio, and create multimedia. They developed friendships and understanding of their own and others' cultures.
You can view the final multimedia projects from the participants online at www.youtube.com/exposuresprogram and you can find out more about the Exposures Program or the In-Sight Photography Project at www.insight-photography.org.
A exhibit of photographs from the 2014 summer program is on display in the gallery at the In-Sight Photography Project at 45 Flat Street, Suite 1, through September.