Culture pour tous

Identity Through a Pinhole

Two artists use the camera obscura as a tool for social integration

Patrick Dionne and Miki Gingras are artists, mediators, educators, consciousness-raisers, activists, parents and humanitarian workers. Since 2001, they have combined their social activism with their artistic work with the camera obscura. Working out of Montreal, with Diasol, the organization they founded to support these endeavours, they have conducted numerous workshops and art projects with marginalized clienteles, young people and adults experiencing school or family problems, suffering from psychological distress or in the process of social reintegration.

Their latest project, a photo mural entitled Identity, was unveiled in April 2010 at the Maison culturelle de Montréal-Nord. It resulted from a creative residency the artists had at École secondaire Henri-Bourassa under the Libres comme l’art program*. Consisting of more than 700 photos made with the students and the active participation of the high school teachers and staff, the mural shows the kids as they chose to present themselves following a number of activities and reflections on the theme of identity.

The Libres comme l’art program was created by the Conseil des arts de Montréal to help young people across the Island of Montreal succeed in school through contact with professional artists. Creative projects are proposed by the artists and must be conducted over a long enough period to develop a relation of trust with the kids.

Miki Gingras and Patrick Dionne had already conducted various short‑term photography projects with the camera obscura at École secondaire Henri-Bourassa. With Libres comme l’art and Identity, they were able to push this exploration further and undertake a collective project requiring longer-term collaboration, specifically with students in cheminement particulier (on an individualized path for learning). Overseen by homeroom teachers Johanne Renaud and Maryse Maréchal, Classes 216 and 217 total some 25 students age 14 to 15 who are experiencing difficulties of various sorts in the regular curriculum.

The Identity project began in November 2009 with the artists trying to figure out how to convert digital cameras into pinhole cameras, which would be required for a subsequent phase of the project. The teachers, for their part, incorporated the theme of identity into their courses. The students were asked to think about it, write essays in French and English, read them out loud and use them as inspiration for art projects.

In the Ethics and Religious Culture course, they watched a film** by Arnaud Bouquet on the work of Nicaraguan artists. Between 2004 and 2008, Miki Gingras and Patrick Dionne had travelled around Nicaragua conducting projects with child workers who were eking out a living from various crafts. Using pinhole cameras made from tin cans, these kids photographed their friends and their living environment, markets, bus stops, dumps, and so on. This work was part of a larger Diasol project called Humanidad that brought together educational activities, intercultural exchange, awareness activities, listening and artistic creation having to do with Latin America. This introduced the students to the Diasol artists and the international issues highlighted in their work.

The program continued with workshops that gave the students hands‑on experience with the camera obscura or pinhole camera. They too would use tin cans and also be able to go inside a giant camera obscura, a portable dark room that the artists had made for their projects and set up on the school grounds. The students would discover the collection of old Kodak Brownie cameras, which the artists had converted into pinhole cameras and the magic of developing in the dark room.

A project bringing together the entire school

The actual photography work began after the 2010 winter holidays and continued for two months. The school had set aside a room where the artists set up a rudimentary studio with a large green cloth as a backdrop. A first group of students came to pose in front of the camera, with their own specific cultural attributes. Some brought objects that were part of their family, cultural or social baggage, while others acted out familiar situations, such as choosing clothing, braiding hair, sharing secrets, playing ball. An earthquake had just devastated Port-au-Prince, and several students from the neighbourhood’s large Haitian community brought a souvenir, family photo, rosary, letter or newspaper to evoke the disaster.

These students told their friends about the project and encouraged them to participate. This had a ripple effect that eventually spread to the entire school, including the staff and teachers, thus broadening the students’ identity circle. In the mural, one can see, for example, the principal next to a clock, a psychologist listening attentively, the history teacher with various artefacts, the visual arts teacher with an easel, the janitor with a cart and broom.

The shooting process got people thinking and questioning, both the students who had to decide how to present themselves and the adults who wanted to illustrate their position in the school. Questions were raised about such issues as religious symbols and the inherent limits on affirming one’s identity within a school and all its rules.

Creation of the mural: a montage of 700 photos

For the third phase of the project, the artists worked in the studio digitally cropping the shots and incorporating them into a mural illustrating these months of intense activity, reflection and expression. (See the mural) This process culminated in four huge photographic prints, forming a 2 metre x 4 metre mural that will be permanently installed at the school. "We’re working hard to create a feeling of belonging," said principal Jean-François Bouchard at the unveiling of the mural. He also noted how proud he was of his school, staff and students.

Ten days later, Miki Gingras and Patrick Dionne set off for Mexico City with Planeta Caos, a video collective that works with street kids. They then continued farther south to Chiapas for new adventures with the intriguing camera obscura.