BOD_Alex

Alexander L. Fattal

Member, Board of Directors

Why AjA?

I started teaching photography to young people when I was in college and was immediately struck by the power of their images. Like my friend Shinpei Takeda, I had been heavily influenced by Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies. In 2001, I graduated and began a participatory photography project with young people in Colombia, many of whom were displaced by the war. That project became a Colombian NGO, Shooting Cameras for Peace, which lasted for seven years and worked hand in hand with AjA.

How did I get to know AjA?

I returned from my one-year Fulbright scholarship to Colombia in 2002 and helped launch the AjA Project. We were fundraising by pedaling people in pedi-cabs around the Gas Lamp district in San Diego, printing photos in the darkroom of our garage, and working with interns from universities around San Diego. There was a great start-up energy to it. It’s been such a joy to watch AjA grow and positively impact so many lives. The work is meaningful and beautiful, and the organization has always been committed to both process and product. AjA has established itself in the vanguard of the participatory media movement and that’s a testament to the entire organization but especially the amazing staff and teachers.

More about me

Currently I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. I am an academic and filmmaker and focus on questions of war and mediation in Colombia. Fun fact, my last film, Limbo , was shot entirely in the back of a truck that I transformed into a giant camera obscura.