Rear Window

With every photo taken by youths in Ciudad Oculta (hidden city), southeast of Buenos Aires, a chip off a wall. This was a wall built in 1978 by the dictatorhip to keep the "Villa 15" neighborhood, as it is also known, apart from the rest of the city and its poverty, out of sight.

Through these photographic apertures, the city in plain view peeks at the hidden city and the hidden city reveals itself in turn to the Buenos Aires we know. Photography and film as a tool for the social inclusion of children and youths is already part of a great number of initiatives that have sprung up in the periphery of various cities in Latin America.

Regardless of which neighborhood it is, whether it is Buenos Aires’ Ciudad Oculta, Bogotá’s Altos de Cazucá, Rio de Janeiro’s Santa Marta or Minas Gerais' Cidade de Deus, the results are the same: a thread of sensibility to sew together cities that have been split apart by social inequality.

When they tell their own stories, describe their lives in  their communities, and stop seeing themselves as passive outsiders, children and youths experience what it means to take back their identities and restore self esteem, regardless of whether they live in favelas, comunas, chabolas, villas or any other names  attached with stigma to the poor areas of chaotic urban centers.

Scenes from within

Eugenio Alfonso learned to take photos in a workshop at the Ciudad Oculta seven years ago. He also learned that photography means more than reproducing images. “I used to think that photography was to report on social events: to take pictures of birthdays, get togethers, parties… I had no idea that a photo can express one’s feelings that means using a language, a way to communicate.”

The first photo that Eugenio took of his surroundings is proof: “A girl in a white dress, and a white dog crosses over a ditch at the entrance to Ciudad Oculta… Like the picture of fairy tale princess,” said Eugenio.

Today Eugenio works as a photographer and teaches other youths in the neighborhood: “People don't know what life is like in a villa, and there is a lot of discrimination against villeros, so our work with photography and the exhibitions we made of the kids' works have been a great accomplishment, it has had tremendous social and artistic impact, it is something that has brought us a lot of pride.”

Miriam Priori is one of the directors of the Argentinian organization ph15, that organized photography workshops in Ciudad Oculta in response to a request by a group of teens in the neighborhood. In her view, the most important aspect is the fact the workshops create a place where youths can spend time together.

The kids who join our workshop have not really been offered opportunities to express themselves, nor people they can really engage with to discuss their problems. The photograpy course ends up being a place where they can develop an active voice and discuss the daily problems of life in the neighborhood. Plus, over time, they end up learning how to work in teams in a respectful and supportive environment, where one learns to criticise each other respectfully,” said Priori.

Another angle to the favela

Over the northern border in Brazil, anthropologist Clarice Libânio takes part in a similar experience, through the “Favela é isso aí” program in Belo Horizonte, capital of Brazil's Minas Gerais state. The organization was created at the end of 2004 when the Guia Cultural de Vilas e Favelas de Belo Horizonte (Cultural guide book to the cities villas and favelas) based on her study that found and noted 740 cultural groups and seven thousand artists in 226 villas, favelas and housing estates in the capital of Minas Gerais state.

“The study was a way to start up a discussion of how art and culture can be used to improve the self esteem, new ways to socialize and new ways to be in grups, as well as a greater political participation in non-traditional venues. It also means access to goods and services in the city,”said Clarice Libânio.

“Favela é isso aí” has been setting up workshops in documentary video and animation for the past five years, and more recently, has introduced photography workshops. “As a result we see not only that youths involved in the workshop hugely enjoy them, but also that the community as a whole is happy to see itself portrayed in such a respectful, positive and beautiful way,” said Libânio. 

As for responses from the larger community outside the neighborhood, Clarice also notes that people are surprised to find interesting aspects in places otherwise considered 'poor and violent'. “The rest of the city is surprised to see there are so many talented artists in the favela. The entire process leads to a new way of looking at the periphery and also a new relationship between those who live in the city and people who live in the shantytown, it is a less prejudiced  gaze, one that is more mutual.”

Also in Brazil, the Curta Favela project that belongs to Viva Rio, a civil society organization based in Rio de Janeiro, has given youths from Rio's favelas the confidence that even limited resources, in this case a simple cel phone, can be used to make small films that are real gems.

“Curta Favela goes to communities and teaches kids and youths, - and older people, because we don't want to exclude anyone- the techniques and the knowhow necessary to create a short film, the entire process from begining to end, with elements that we have at hand: cell phones. We then show them how to make their films shown in the internet so that reach a wider audience, everyone,” said photographer Wálter Mesquita, Curta Favela creator.

One of Wálter's greatest joys, in his words, has been the children's response,  their boundless capabilities and creativity. “A Dog's Life” that shows life in the favela from the point of view of a dog was one of the short films created by the children at the Curta project. The star of the film is Boris, a rottweiler loved by the children in the community and used to wandering freely in the Santa Marta shantytown. The children strapped a camera on Boris' collar to get his point of view.

Another exercise brought together children that already taken the workshop various shantytowns to produce a short film in a single day. “The only thing I did was to offer them a starting point, (a bird cemetary in Paquetá) they took that and developed the whole thing: script, production, acting, the filming everything. In the end we got a very interesting story, and the experience was more than merely aesthetic results, it was also an exercise in getting along among kids who live in rival communities, they allowed themselves to come closer, to get to know each other, and found commonalities,” said Walter.

Camera shots in Bogotá

Perhaps one of the pioneering projects is the Disparando Cámeras por la Paz, DCP, (Cameras shooting for peace) created in 2002 by Alex Fatal, a photographer from the United States who started out teaching photography to kids in the Altos de Cazucá in the periphery of Bogotá, a neighborhood that grew over four decades with people displaced from the interior, migrants from  rural areas fleeing violence.

Back then, the black and white photographs taken by children ranging in age from 9 to 15 based on topics such as memory, the future, and fear, affected how the rest of the city saw that neighborhood. Used to news on crime and insecurity, Bogotá cityfolk felt the pictures opened up a new door for them to identify with these children, who offered a new and unguarded look at daily life in their community: they took photos of their siblings playing, their parents arguing, a teacher at school, the neighborhood dogs, the mountains, houses.

“It is hard to measure results, but I believe that this work has helped the community to create and project its self image, instead of leaving it to people outside the community, to media professionals. Their pictures have travelled far, they have been shown at the United Nations and have been hung outside the houses in the neighborhood. I think the project developed a sensibility to the power of images in the sense that it is possible to use them as a tool, no matter what is your place in society,” said Alex.

With limited resources, the project used pinhole cameras to make their images. “Its photography down the basics, a black box (or cilinder) and you are done. When we were short in funds, we used cameras made out of cans, in other words, photography is highly democratic, in the sense that everyone can do it.”

The Altos de Cazucá children's photos are now part of the memory of the city. No other reporter, no other photographer could have told these stories in as  artistic and highly original a way as these children did. Citing Roland Barthes, Álex said that what transforms documentary photography into art is the affect that is present in the relation between the photographer and his or her subject. “That is why the children and youths in DCP in general were such successful photographers: they take a fresh and energetic eye to subjects they are deeply involved with.”

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi