Adults are always telling youth what they should do, think or be: rarely do we try to see the world through their eyes.
That’s what the Excel Photography Project at Detroit community organization Focus:Hope aims to do. Students in ninth, tenth or twelfth grade from the neighborhoods surrounding Focus:Hope’s northwest Detroit campus work with a professional photographer as a mentor throughout the school year. They learn to work with digital SLR cameras first, and then move on to learning how to shoot and develop black and-white film. Weekend field trips to local cultural institutions like the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Heidelberg Project provide inspiration, while visits to places that many of us take for granted but city kids may never go, such as a cider mill or Greenfield Village, provide a new way of looking at the world outside of their daily lives.
They also work on self-development exercises and leadership activities, which help them to understand their own potential and spur a lifelong love of learning.
An exhibit of student photographs is on view at the Boll Family YMCA downtown now through October. The photos provide a look at the world through the eyes of kids who are often marginalized, and affirms their vision, creativity and talent. Check out this video created by the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, where the exhibit originated, and come to the Boll to get a look at the work of some up-and-coming young people.