Felsman Documentary fellowship

I was a 2014-15 Documentary Fellow through the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy’s Felsman Fellowship program. As a Felsman Fellow, I spent 10 months in Lima, Perú facilitating documentary workshops with teenagers, through which they investigated and made pieces about their own communities, families and cultures. The workshops were facilitated in partnership with the Peruvian organization INFANT, el Instituto de Formación de Adolescentes y Niños Trabajadores (Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Workers). Some of the projects were also designed and carried out in collaboration with my fellowship partner, nurse practitioner Lauren Beaudry. I also traveled with INFANT staff to their other office in the Amazonian city of Iquitos, where I documented their ongoing youth leadership and conservation project. To read more about the process and context, you can find my Felsman Fellowship blog here.  

Estar y Bienestar (Being and WellBeing)

An exhibit of artistic projects created by Los Peruanitos (the Little Peruvians), a group of organized boys and girls from the 12 de Junio community in Lima’s Villa María del Triunfo district. Through photography and writing, Los Peruanitos explored the concepts of identity and health at the individual, family and community levels. Their projects examine themes such as community health, self-care, self-expression, and what it means to be a part of something. In the process, they created an intimate portrait of their lives and their community.

A Little piece of the jungle in the city

Karoli, Christy and Tony are three teenagers from the indigenous Shipibo community Cantagallo, in Lima, Peru. Together they worked on videos about their lives, focusing on their families, culture, and community. They worked as a collective to represent their community in sounds and images—to emphasize the elements that unite its inhabitants and bind their stories together. Each had a turn both behind and in front of the camera. The particularities of their stories—and the multiplicity of realities in Cantagallo—shine through in each of their distinctive approaches.

The ABCs of Villa El Salvador

A visual alphabet of a community in the Villa El Salvador district of Lima, Peru, composed of photographs taken by young community members. Through photography and writing, these young people, who work, learn and play together as a collective they’ve named Amigos por Siempre (Friends Forever), investigate what makes them proud about their community, and what they would like to change.

“What we eat” zine

As part of the series of workshops that culminated in the exhibit Estar y Bienestar, girls in 12 de Junio created a zine about healthy eating and food in their community. The girls took on the role of Community Investigators, going on photographic scavenger hunts in search of examples of the five food groups around the community; documenting their meals at home through a food diary; and sharing family recipes. These photographs, plus their artistic renderings of their newfound knowledge through self-care and nutrition workshops led by nurse practitioner Lauren Beaudry, all came together in the zine.

NIÑOS AL RESCATE (CHILDREN TO THE RESCUE)

Video made for INFANT about their project Niños al Rescate y Cuidado de los Bosques in the Amazonian city of Iquitos, Peru.  The project is an attempt to confront the deforestation occurring in 8 de Diciembre, a result of both the flooding and the inhabitants’ many uses of the trees—such as for firewood, charcoal, and construction. Each week, community members go out in search of seedlings that can be saved, focusing on the species most used by the communities. They then move these to the recently-constructed Vivero Forestal de la Ternura—Forest Nursery of Tenderness—where they will grow for about a year, until they are transplanted to their new, old home in the forest. The project is an effort to preserve the biodiversity of the forest, while also ensuring future generations can make use of its abundance for their daily needs.