Rewind two years and nine months, minus COVID-19, plus ten cameras—and you will find Free Movement Skateboarding at Latraac cafe in downtown Athens on a sunny afternoon.
Our Women’s program in full swing, we would frequent Latraac Skate Cafe to run creative workshops on the side of our skateboarding programs. Located just a ten minute bus ride from one of the refugee camps we partnered with, it was a perfect opportunity to allow our participants to express themselves in a different environment.
Many of our international volunteers would bring ideas and skills to share with the young people we teach. They would host creative workshops on anything from photography to jewellery-making, grip tape art and music.
One workshop which really stood out and left a lasting impression on the girls who participated was a Photo Novella workshop led by volunteer Conor Mullen.
Conor designed this project as part of his university thesis, and brought with him a bunch of Kodak Printomatic cameras to be used in the workshop and then donated them to Free Movement in order for us to continue hosting similar workshops with the kids.
Let’s hear a bit from Conor about his inspiration for the workshops and how he thought they went down…
How did you come up with the idea?
Conor: The photo novella project at FMS was something I came up with in a class I was taking for my graduate program at the time. Photo novella, or photo voice, is a research method found mostly in the social sciences that uses photography as a means of exploring a theme with a project’s participants. I thought this sounded like a fun way to survey kiddos on what they enjoy about skateboarding and FMS skate sessions. As a group, we learned how to use these really nifty Kodak Printomatic cameras, then the kids took photos relating to the theme, compiling their images into some small hand-sewn books. I wanted to see what the kids thought of skating, and I wanted us to have fun while we were answering that question.
How do you think the workshop went/how the kids perceived it?
C: I have been lucky to volunteer with a number of social skateboard organizations around the globe, and one thing that I have learned about bringing a project to these settings is that you need to be flexible and ready to adapt the project. It really is for the best if you can spend more than a month working with the group, but sometimes that’s all the time you have. The weeks fly by, and before you know it, you only have a few days left skating and volunteering. Although the project didn’t go exactly according to plan, we pulled it off in the end. The one thing that I wish we could have done before the end of my time there, was to bring the kids and their families together at Latraac (where we held the photo novella project) to share their projects with one another and celebrate.
I think the kids had a good time taking photos of their pals skating the ramp at Latraac and the instructors at FMS that they have found friends in. The Printomatic is a really fun instant-print camera, and the adhesive backing of the film was a nice surprise for the group. Who among us doesn’t love skate photos and stickers? Based on the photos and the words found inside the kids’ books, I think it’s safe to say what we already knew – they love skateboarding at FMS – so much that you really need to respect their time on the board. Pesky researchers be warned. Let the kids skate!
Do you have anything to comment about using point-and-shoot cameras – whether you chose them just as a functional (simple) medium for the kids or if the point-and-shoot style of capturing photos had more of a significance for the project?
C: That’s a good question – I was excited about the Printomatic because I thought its immediacy would serve the project well for the limited amount of time we had together, and the instant gratification of seeing ones’ photo spit out of the camera was something I thought the kids would enjoy. The price of a few Printomatics, the sticky-backed film they use, and their toy-like appearance were also selling points for me in planning the activity. Though my preparations were mostly geared towards the pragmatic there, I think point and shoots are also great for younger learners when you’re wanting them to focus mostly on composition and story.
Seeing as photography has had such an impact on your life, how do you feel it might positively affect a young person who tries it and gets hooked too?
C: This is maybe a different way of looking at the question, but…
When I was first getting into photography I was introduced to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos – which for some reason struck me more than other photos I had seen out there. I started reading things he’d written about photography, and his thoughts resonated with me in the same way his photos did. He described composing a photo as a “great physical and intellectual joy” and as a “recognition of rhythm in the world of real things.” I think these ideas and sensations that he describes are also things that we can find through skateboarding, and I think finding joy in its simplest forms is a positive thing for all of us. So when kids find joy through photography or skateboarding or whatever it might be, they have found a big chunk of what they deserve in life.
A big thank you to Conor for volunteering with us all those years ago and for running such a wonderful photography workshop. Just like skateboarding, creative expression through artistic means really opens up your surroundings to you in new and exciting ways. A few of the girls who took part in this workshop continued to pursue their new hobbie, using the cameras Conor donated to take photographs of our skate park trips. We’ll see if we can dig some up from the archives!
Title quote by Susan Sontag
