EXPLORING IDENTITY AND MEMORY THROUGH VISUAL STORYTELLING Chapbook Available
Ages 16-29
Fall 2020, Online
In this distance learning workshop, student fellows will draw from their family histories to explore the concepts of identity, belonging, and cultural memory. Documenting personal inter-generational stories, traditions, and journeys through interviews, photographic portraits, and video clips, students will discover and define their own compass points on family and geographical maps. Whose shoulders do they stand on? Whose recipes or cheekbones have they inherited? Whose faith do they observe or perhaps reject? And how do family and inherited practices interact with those acquired independently from society outside the family circle? “Who am I” and “where do I come from” are complex questions with many-layered answers. This workshop will give fellows an opportunity to consider those questions from all angles, and to use the power of word and image to amplify their voices and express all the identities they discover. They’ll learn essential techniques for research, interviewing, writing, and photography--invaluable tools for documentary storytelling. Their work will be collected in a photo book, and shared through a virtual exhibition and on the program website. Limited to 8 student fellows.
Zoraida Díaz, a Colombian-born photojournalist, covered some of the most impactful Latin American stories of the 80s and 90s for Reuters. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Libération, O Globo, The Guardian, Dagens Nyheter, Clarín, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore.
Karter Burnett is an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University, where he is studying philosophy and theatre. His background includes poetry, activism, and storytelling. He is dedicated to serving underrepresented artists in Baltimore and beyond through community-building initiatives.
