Speeding down Rt. 70 last week, Norma Patterson was shocked by an image on the billboard that flew by. This local educator wasn’t stunned by the gratuitous use of sex, nor a distasteful cigarette ad, nor the latest promise of religious salvation; she saw the black and white work of a twelve-year-old photographer; a beacon of art, shining upon the city below.
Since late January, underprivileged youth from Long Middle School, located in Southside St. Louis, have worked with Washington University art professors and photography majors as part of the Viewpoint project. In its inaugural year, the project is an attempt to revitalize and enthuse the school system in a neighborhood where education is a luxury. Richard Krueger, project director and assistant professor of photography, intended to bring to the community a spark of creativity from a university where this luxury is a part of everyday life.
Viewpoint History
Krueger first implemented the program four years ago, while the assistant professor of photography at Youngstown State University in Ohio. Krueger was inspired by the idea that art can breathe new life into a dying inner city school system. He sought not only to enrich the education system of under-funded schools, but also to deepen the education of university photography students.
His idea was that one could inspire underprivileged youth to excel in academics by adding an artistic challenge to their curriculum. Krueger, with the aid of his photography students, worked with fourth-graders at a local
elementary school to document the community through photography and integrate the creative process into other areas of education.
The project was an overwhelming success, and three years later, when Krueger came to WU, he saw an opportunity to expand the reach of the project into a new city.
“The program started as a way to engage the community through creative outreach,” he said. “The role that art can play in a community can greatly effect social change.”
Viewpoint as a Catalyst for Social Change
Coming to St. Louis, Krueger was given a new community with which to work; this one much larger, with more resources, and perhaps in even greater need of a catalyst for educational progression. Krueger proposed his idea to members of the WU community and set out to find the school that would benefit most from the project.
Long Middle School is located in the Oak Hill Community, on the southern end of St. Louis, nestled between Kingshighway and South Grand. The school has a reputation for diversity, with a near-equal population of white, black, and ethnic students. Students from Albania, Bosnia, Vietnam, Korea, Jamaica, Taiwan, and West Africa, trudge through the crowded halls, mixing their various dialects and accents with the usual shouting and laughter of an American school.
The three-story building stands out in the surrounding residential sprawl; a pillar of knowledge in a neighborhood where funding for education is limited and the pull of crime and street gangs are an overwhelming barrier to education. Around the time that Viewpoint was making a difference in a school four hundred miles away, the St. Louis Public School District selected Long as a “School of Opportunity,” which basically meant that a major educational change was needed. Krueger thought that he held the answer to that change.
To accept the challenge of the SLPSD, Long instituted itself as a “Community Education Center,” extending its operating hours well past the school day in an attempt to draw youth off the streets and into the classroom. Krueger selected this after-hours time as the heart of the project’s reach. Students who were involved usually were at or under national averages for school performance, yet harbored the desire to improve.
“The kids were working with ‘Different Ways of Knowing’,” said Norma Patterson, instructional coordinator at Long. “A social based reading program that tries to incorporate the arts into the student’s curriculum.”
“We talked about the power of photography as an art form, as a way of expression,” said Krueger. “We discussed how to make meaning out of your world. out of your most intimate relationships.”
For over three months the 70 or so sixth-, seventh, and eighth-graders documented their community with the help of Krueger and about 16 junior and senior level photography majors. The kids were given almost $ 1,500 worth of disposable cameras (two 24-exposure ones each) and asked to document the images that most defined their lives and homes.
WU photography students worked from 2-4 pm Wednesdays with the twelve through fourteen-year-olds, introducing them to all aspects of photography and the power that the art form holds. Students were given a brief history of photography, lectures on how cameras work, the aesthetic aspects of photographing, and the value of photography as art. The after-hours period was the primary time to develop the students’ knowledge of photography, but the program was further integrated into their day schooling as well.
In science class, students learned how cameras work, how chemicals and light are used to create photographs, and even worked to build their own primitive cameras.
In history, the students discussed the use of photography as a historical tool, specifically its role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Photography was even integrated into English classes, as students met with photojournalists and learned of the relationship between photos and the printed word, realizing the power of the form as a system of documentation.
“The kids though about how photography can become part of the history of the community in which they work and live,” said Patterson. “And that what they do can become a part of that history.”
To cap off the educational component, the group made two trips to WU, visiting the Steinberg Gallery and the School of Art. The students were able to work in darkrooms at the Lewis Center and more fully understand the practical and artistic aspects of photography in a university setting. Professor Patrick Renschen Furthermore, the visit to WU helped instill in the students the power of education and, as Krueger said, the notion “that college is not unreachable.”
Finding a Cultural Broker
To take on such an impressive project, as a new resident in St. Louis, Krueger needed to find a local organization with experience and resources. He was looking for a partner to serve as a link between the ideology of his project and the practicality of a school and student body willing to make it a reality. Through connections at the School of Art, Krueger was referred to Young Audiences of St. Louis, a branch of the nationwide Young Audiences Inc. Young Audiences have been integrating artistic elements into elementary school
curriculums for over 43 years.
“It was a good match-making deal,” said Cathy Luther, executive director of Young Audiences, St. Louis. “We served as a broker in the relationship [between the two schools].”
In the past Young Audiences worked mainly with small projects aimed at elementary school children. Long was an inner city middle school, with sixth through eighth graders. The scope of Viewpoint was much larger than anything that Young Audiences, Long Middle School, or the WU School of Art had dealt with before. The project’s success rested on uniting these three distinct organizations.
“Most importantly this project was about joining the resources of three very different institutions,” Luther said. “There were many different layers that had to come together.”
Since they first came together in February 2001, these three groups have held close to 70 meetings to get the project under control.
“This was a true collaboration between the University and the community,” Krueger said.
Viewpoint in the University
The philanthropic aspect of the project sparked a noticeable change in inner city communities, but the practical reach of Viewpoint went far beyond just social action. The program serves as the core junior-level studio for photography majors at WU. All eight current photography juniors were asked to be involved with the project as a supplement to more traditional art courses. Even senior photo majors, who were not required to take the course, lent their talent and time to the project.
The classroom component of the course focused on the role and theories of documental photography. Students learned the different aspects of documentation and discussed ways to capture meaningful images.
The studio component was literally the St. Louis community. By going into Oak Hill and talking, learning, and working with the residents, students were able to better understand the life behind the images. WU students collected the children’s photographs, developed them, and helped the children to select the images that had the most meaning.
“One of the things that makes the project unique is that we were going outside the classroom and immersing ourselves in another part of the community,” said junior photography major Annie Berman.
Each of the junior-level students worked with a group of eight to twelve middle-schoolers. In these groups they discussed the practical aspects of photography and how to capture meaning in the images we find. Senior photography students mainly worked with the children during their school day, in the integrated educational component.
“The work was difficult and time consuming [for the WU students],” said Krueger. “They worked hard, enduring long hours and stress and produced some amazing stuff.”
To Krueger, the project went far beyond the usual university photography education. Rather than simply focusing on artistic and theoretical components of photo, students were able to get an experience of what it’s like to be a professional photographer. Students had the opportunity to exhibit their work in both professional and alternative arenas, learn what it takes to manage a large-scale art project, and gain teaching experience working with the young students.
For some, the true power of the project didn’t come from the lessons learned, but from the relationships forged.
“I think the project was a huge success on both ends,” said junior photography major Laura Potts. “We got not only teaching experience but also an amazing opportunity to share something that we’re passionate about with others.”
Viewpoint in the Lime Light
After years of dreaming, months of planning, and thousands of hours of work, the Viewpoint project culminates in April with a photographic explosion of exhibition. Krueger has worked with WU, Art-in-Transit, ViaCom Corporation, and the City Museum to create the most extensive presentation possible.
“It is truly a city-wide exhibition. showing the social engagement form of art,” Krueger said.
The primary and most traditional space is an exhibition of photographs at the City Museum. The exhibit opens with a reception today from 6 to 8 pm at the City Museum gallery. Krueger will join students and administrators from Long, WU, and Young Audiences to unveil their fruits of their six-month-long journey.
ViaCom helped share the cost of displaying the photos on five interstate and 15 inner-city billboards. In addition to this, the St. Louis Art-in-Transit project installed selected images on lighted marquees at MetroLink stations and on over 20 MetroLink buses. Hundreds of t-shirts and posters were printed for sale in the city museum and in shops across the city. The city is literally the project’s showcase.
For Krueger and his students, it’s a proud moment to see their hard work come to fruition. But for the young students, who may have received little recognition for anything before the project, what it means to display their lives and work is unspeakable.
“Our goal was not necessarily for these kids to become artists, or photographers, but that they become more powerful individuals,” he said. “I wanted them to understand that if they work hard, then their
viewpoints will count.”