Author: lisafotos

Rebecca photographing at Limerigg, December 2012

I have been working weekly with HYPE (Helping Young People Engage) which assists young people transitioning from school to work/further education through skills training to move on to positive destinations. What began as a ten week course in partnership with West Lothian Heritage Services to collect oral histories and photography of people’s working lives in West Lothian developed in to an additional ten sessions to assist the young people in developing their portfolios to study photography at West Lothian College.

Over the course of these two projects a number of young people attended and there was always a good atmosphere of friendship, humour and a willingness to engage and learn. I set up a Facebook group where their photography, worksheets and tutorials were posted to assist them in their learning and latterly I used the ‘chat’ function to speak to them about their interviews.

Two of the participants applied to study photography NC at West Lothian College. They worked hard in editing their photographs and I had them work together to achieve this knowing that they would be asked to discuss their work in interview. We arranged a meeting with Zoe who was one of last year’s HYPE participants and is at the College studying photography and who has just been accepted on the HNC Photography course. She spoke to them about the college and the tutors and what to expect in their interviews.

I dragged them up to Perth Museum and Art Gallery to speak to educators about the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, they photographed an event on behalf of SCHUH and West Lothian Schools and met with professional photographers, they were dragged around galleries and I had them trudge through abandoned frozen industrial landscapes and up hills taking pictures.

Rebecca and Kayla have both been accepted to study for their NC in photography at West Lothian College. They will further develop their skills in photography with their peers in an open, vibrant and inspiring learning environment and, just like Zoe the year before make new friends and thrive.

So, how do we measure the success of this project? There are a several perspectives;

Let’s start with an example from one of the participants, Kayla. She gave me a card which pretty much says it all. I can see how far she has come in her photography but more importantly her desire to learn, her confidence and outlook on life.

The senior youth worker who ran the project (Heather Thomson) and senior staff in the education department at West Lothian Council have achieved positive outcomes. We attended an event recently with Angela Constance, Scottish Minister for Youth Employment and Kayla and Rebecca spoke to her about their plans for their futures. They were also cheered by others present at the event when told they had been accepted to college. I would also like to take this chance to thank Heather for allowing me a free hand to develop this project with her and I hope to further develop and build partnerships with Heather and her dedicated team in the near future

Kayla and Rebecca meeting the Angela Constance the Scottish Government Minister for Youth Employment

From my personal perspective it was a joy to have the freedom to work in an inspiring environment, to bring together aspects of my working life (namely photography and collaborative practice) and share my knowledge. There is something so satisfying about helping people realise their creative and personal goals and not all of my projects are this rewarding…

Working with West Lothian Archive I developed a series of workshops which celebrated the history of Livingston and worked with participants to make new work to place back into the Archive. Taking archive images as a starting point, each of the four projects looked at a different theme. Braid Care Home chose to look at and discuss their working lives in Livingston and when they first arrived there compared to now. The Vennie skateboarding group chose to look at aerial images of early Livingston’s roadways to inspire new graphics for skateboards. The school projects deigned their own t-shirts to wear at the launch which were inspired by the public art of Livingston. The Youth Inclusion Project looked through old archive images of the councillors and youth groups in the area and chose to place themselves in these images (they recognised and liked the juxtaposition of a young person from now and how out of place they looked).

I have been working on the Livingston 50 heritage project for a while now and this set of workshops at Braid House is the final set before the planning of the exhibition.

It is refreshing working with a group of older participants. It brings with it challenges “I’ve no’ got a creative bone in my body hen”, being the classic line. But assisting them in bringing their memories in to a creative realm is rewarding and it allows me to work at a slower pace and in some cases individually. I love listening to their stories of an area I know very well and am in awe of the men who helped build Livingston as they look through archive images pointing out which areas they worked in as brick layers, pipe fitters, builders and kerb layers.

The mood in the sessions is very jovial; sharing jokes and scandalous gossip of the Development Corporation. They bring in photographs of their history in Livingston and of the people important in their lives. I listen while they share these images with me and respond as to how we take these inspiring images in to their finished piece of work. They will be creating commemorative plates illustrating their lives in Livingston, and these will be exhibited in April at Howden Park Centre as part of the Livingston 50 celebrations.

Above is a photograph of ‘Alec’ holding a sea bass. Alec was one of the first businesses to set up in Livingston at Craigshill Mall. He had the fish shop. Alec will include this photograph on his memorial plate to symbolise his business in Livingston. He took home the sea bass to have for his tea…

Stirling Council commissioned me in April of 2011 to develop a project working with the P7 class of East Plean PS. I knew these children well and had been working with them since they were P4 during my artist residency in the Bannockburn cluster of primary schools.

The children were transitioning between primary and high school. East Plean is a small community- one of the outlying villages of Stirling. There is a high rate of unemployment in this area. As part of their transitioning between primary and high school, the class teacher develops a school diary of their time at East Plean PS, and the children pay a visit to the High School- all this assists them with the dramatic change between a small rural primary school and the much larger Bannockburn HS.

In collaboration with Clare Hoare (cultural coordinator) and Mark Hill (class teacher) we developed a portraiture project which would tie in to the children’s learning but which also brought aspiration, creativity and realistic career goals as well as tie in to the Curriculum for Excellence. Over several sessions, the children developed a sense of what portraiture is, and how we represent ourselves to the public tells a lot about who we are. Portraiture and identity are both issues i like to address when working with photography in an educational setting. The children looked at the work of several photographers -namely Richard Avedon’s “Out West’ series and works by August Sander. These works demonstrate the power of the photographer in documenting the human condition honestly but also how the title of a work can affect our reaction towards it.

The children worked with their teacher Mark Hill on developing realistic career goals through questionnaires and diary work. Then they developed costume ideas and poses with myself. The images were shot outdoors against black velvet and the prints here are accompanied by quotes from the children themselves. The children had an exhibition of their work at their school graduation ceremony and were presented with a small print to keep. The larger mounted works were then exhibited at the Macrobert.

Clare, Mark and I were all delighted with the finished works and how well the project had gone. The children were engaged, interested and creative.

The success of this project inspired Clare and myself to collaborate on a funding application and we are delighted to say that we have won a significant amount from Awards for All to develop this project further and deliver it between January and June 2013. We are planning on working across several schools in Stirling including Charter House School which is for young people no longer engaged in formal education. 

We are planning to embed realistic aspirational career goals in to this creative project, allow the young people to create work within a safe environment, and we hope to certify this project through my training as an Arts Awards supplier. This will allow the young people to achieve a qualification outwith a formal learning environment.

Below are a selection of images from the project at East Plean PS. I am really hoping that we will be able to reconnect with this group of children (who are now in second year at High School) to see how they are doing and hopefully they will agree to be involved in the project again to see how far their career aspirations have travelled from those last few weeks of Primary School