The idea
This LTP (Literacy through Photography) is an interdisciplinary symposium that will celebrate the life stories and creative work of disempowered and disparaged communities. Participant's existing visual stories will be developed into diverse literacy forms to compound the meanings and messages within them to engage, educate and encourage community discourse.
This symposium will invite audiences from the broader community to explore diversity through story various creative literacy forms and types. Visual, linguistic, cultural and social literacy will be integrated to facilitate awareness of diverse lived experience.
The storytelling participants will lead seminars, discussions, presentations and collaborate with the audience to co-create new work based on the experience of the symposium itself. This co-created work will become a part of the narrative created in the symposium and exhibited also.
A zine of the collective works will be published and distributed.
What we'll deliver
- Deliver literacy skills and arts development workshops
- Co-ordinate symposium of talks, interviews and presentations
- Produce and distribute Zine of collective works
Why it's a great idea
The symposium reaches across the scope of educational, social and cultural aspects of community and combines visual storytelling and literacy development. This multimodal platform is a powerful tool for people to express, connect and communicate for both creators and attendees alike.
Engagement through creativity enables people who may find conventional methods of expression challenging a place to express themselves and be heard. And through story connect with others by developing creative and technical skills for expression and communication.
Cultural awareness, celebrating diversity and the breaking of stereotypes in community are motivating factors for more inclusive dialogue and understanding of difference, cultures and identities.
The symposium is an opportunity to build a stronger community by using culturally relevant material generated by the community itself. This ownership of story is a form of democratic agency and a tool for ongoing dialogue and social change
Steps to get it done
- Facilitating/co-creating interdisciplinary texts that illustrate life stories
- Opening of Symposium
- Participants leading talks and presenting their own work and stories
- Creating and distributing participatory Zine throughout community
The LTP symposium will be interactive and creatives works will be presented, displayed and discussed by people who have suffered and faced arduous challenges in life. Displaced people, drug and alcohol recovery, carers, neuro diverse, differently abled and abuse survivors will form the collective of storytellers charing their lived experiences with the wider community.
