Project Description
ABOUT JOURNEY
In July of 2002, The AjA Project launched Journey, a photography-based after-school program in San Diego, CA. Journey draws on principles of participatory photography to engage recently resettled refugee and immigrant youth in City Heights (Crawford High School) and El Cajon (Cajon Valley Middle/High School and Emerald Middle School).
AjA’s participatory photography curriculum is rooted in the understanding that resettled youth arrive with a wealth of knowledge about the world. AjA’s teaching artists engage critically and creatively with participants as they develop their photography skills and other mixed media art forms. Through these mediums, students learn how to translate the knowledge they possess about themselves and their communities into visual stories.
Journey participants use their photography skills to address themes such as identity, resettlement, migration, home, culture, community, advocacy and artivism. Through this process, Journey participants create a stronger sense of community and learn to value the unique worldview that each person brings into the space. Often times, participants do not have an opportunity to build these values and important sense of community during their traditional academic school day, so having a safe after-school environment to do so is critical to the participants’ overall well-being.
Each Journey program culminates in an end-of-semester exhibition where participants showcase their original artwork and speak about their own process and learnings. During these celebratory events, participants engage with peers, family members and stakeholders from the community as an opportunity to broaden awareness and shape their own narrative.
By learning the power of photography in constructing stories, participants are able to think more deeply about personal and community-based issues in the context of a rapidly changing world.
Through this program, AjA has provided long-term, community-based programming for over 1,500 refugee and immigrant youth. The photo-based narratives created by AjA’s participants have been shared with over 750,000 viewers through large-scale public exhibits, including exhibitions at the National Geographic Society’s Explorers’ Hall (2003), United Nations Headquarter (2004), and the San Diego Museum of Art (2006).
ABOUT JOURNEY SPRING 2020
This program works with the San Diego refugee community of El Cajon Valley Middle School. This curriculum uses photography and art as a tool for self-reflection on identity, culture, self-expression, and integration to a new country and/or community. This process of collective self-exploration is designed to validate and empower the participants’ experience and provide an avenue for self-guided growth. The curriculum uses art therapy methodology to support students to grow their self-esteem, improve teamwork, and be leaders in the spaces they are in. This program was designed to be 12 sessions of one and a half-hour each where students would work on four projects that reflect and represent their identity, community, and culture. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the participants were only able to create two projects, meet 7 sessions, and had to unexpectedly close the program early for this semester.
We want to celebrate their work and participation in this special program by exhibiting the process, documentation, and creation of the projects they created around their personal identity and bicultural life.
