PHOTOVOICE A PROJECT OF PARTICIPATORY PHOTOGRAPHY- UNIVERSITY OF HUELVA

The Experience Classroom of the University of Huelva, presents the Photovoice experience, a project of Participatory Photography that uses the image as a tool to help people from defined groups to identify with their group and to represent and strengthen their community. Photovoice represents a tool of social action and empowerment that uses photography as a language, and therefore, as a way of expressing the reality of the group involved. The objectives related to Photovoice have been focused particularly on disadvantaged social groups, although nowadays their communicative and educational possibilities have been extended to other groups with different specific needs as for example the older adult group.

During the academic year 2015/ 16 of the Experience Classroom of the University of Huelva, an experience of participatory photography (Photovoice) was initiated, from which the students and the teacher in charge of the course decided to create a stable group of photography. In November 2016 the Group Minuto de Ruido (A Minute of Noise) was created. Nowadays, this group is made up of 21 members.

Participatory photography or Photovoice uses the image as a tool to help people from defined groups to identify with their group and to represent and strengthen their community. Photovoice represents a tool of social action and empowerment that uses photography as a language, and therefore, as a way of expressing the reality of the group involved. The objectives related to Photovoice have been focused particularly on disadvantaged social groups, although nowadays their communicative and educational possibilities have been extended to other groups with different specific needs as for example the older adult group.

The photography group Minuto de Ruido has, therefore, the vocation to use photography as a resource for expression and communication. For this purpose, several strategies linked to photography are combined as an expressive resource, while the techniques of so-called “media literacy” are applied according to the Lifelong Learning Programme, with the aim of promoting the integration of the older adults into the virtual media by using photography, in that way, the photography group stimulates their integration into the digital world and also stimulates the expression of their feelings and emotions.  

Since its inception, Minuto de Ruido was made up by a group of students interested in the objectives and methodology of the participatory photography. To this end, the knowledge and the application of basic photographic techniques were considered necessary in order to use them with digital cameras, including the built-in cameras of mobile phones. This objective has been developing in both the academic ruled field of the Experience Classroom of the University of Huelva and also in informal meetings with the members of the group. The motivating nature of the group is based on the fact that the selection of the photographic themes comes from the interest and proposals of the members. They promote days of coexistence and “photographic outings” to various areas of interest in their environment. On the other hand, permanent talks have been established, in both real and in virtual spaces, about the images captured, that try to promote the expression of feelings and emotions.

The activities of the group have been made public thanks to the exhibitions of printed photographs and compilation videos. On the other hand, the use of social networks has been considered necessary as means of dissemination of the work done by the members. These group activities are shown on a Facebook page called Minuto de Ruido, where all the members can upload their own photographs and any comments of interest. As a result of their activities, the presentation of an oral communication about Minuto de Ruido took place during the Conference of the Spanish Association of University Programmes for Older Adults, which was held in Santiago de Compostela in June of this year.

Recently, a project of Educational Innovation was given to several members of the group with the aim, among others, of creating a web page where their activities were showed, and that could serve as means of raising awareness and knowledge of the reality of older adults. Another result of granting this project has been the publication of a book that tries to condemn, through the text and the photographic material, the abandoned public buildings of the city of Huelva, made by the members of the group who, in this way, they want to make public their discomfort for the state of those buildings while at the same time, the book stressed the importance in vital memory of the members of Minuto de Ruido.

In conclusion, the experience gained by Minuto de Ruido in its first year of experience has been stimulating, since the objective of its creation is being met very positively. Nowadays, Minuto de Ruido is a very active group, that meets frequently and that performs common photographic exercises where the expressive nature of its photographs is combined with an emotional aspect that is transmitted to the university community and other areas, that use computer media as system of internal and external communication, but above all, it links their members with strong ties of friendship and acknowledgment, keeping a steady excitement in the work they do.