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Photographer
Wendy Ewald's exhibit "Secret Games" at the Corcoran Gallery
of Art in Washington D.C., is one of the most tangible results of her
30-year experiment combining the fields of art and education.
In the 1970s, as a photography teacher in Kentucky, Ewald urged her
students to photograph their families, communities and dreams.
She soon realized that such encouragement empowered children to articulate
their emotions and their aesthetic vision, as well as giving them a
heightened sense of the world around them. This developed into a career
of combining photography with education.
Wendy Ewald has since worked with children all over the world to break
down the boundaries between photographer and subject.
She has worked with children in Colombia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and
South Africa, taking her own photographs as well as working with children
to help them through their own creative photographic journeys.
Throughout, the foundation of Ms. Ewald's work remains constant: exploring
the relationship of education to art, and enriching children's lives
by empowering them through self-expression. The exhibit travels to the
Rhode Island School of Design Museum in June 2002.
Wendy Ewald responds to viewer questions below.
Martha
Lipshitz of Brooklyn, NY asks:
What is your favorite kind of camera to use for your photographic work?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
I've used different cameras at different points in my career. For many
years I used a Hassleblad camera which uses two-and-a-quarter by two-and-a-quarter-inch
film. Now I use a Horseman, a large-format camera that I use with Polaroid
positive/negative film or color film.
I never use a 35mm camera because I don't like the elongated
shape of the image. I like to use large format fine-grained film so
the skin of my subjects looks very realistic.
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Harold
Butz of Milwaukee, Wis. asks:
Do you consider yourself more an artist or historian, or both?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
I consider myself an artist. I trained as an artist. Although I'm interested
in history, anthropology, psychology and sociology, I've used my art
to explore the issues that interest me.
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Gus
Smith of Scooby, Mont. asks:
What questions do you pose to children to get them thinking about their
photos?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
I ask them to give quick one-word responses to each other's photographs.
I want them to think impressionistically at first. Then they ask each
other to explain their responses. Why is a photo scary for example?
Then they have to analyze the image for a response.
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Jessica
Howard of Miami, Fla. asks:
What age range is most appropriate for your program?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
People have used the program for students as young as kindergarten,
through high school, college and for adults. I personally like to work
with students from about eight years old to thirteen. They are very
imaginative and able to handle the technology easily.
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Alisa
Borland of Philadelphia, Pa. asks:
Do you believe your work with children would be the same if you had
started those types of projects later in life?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
What a great question! I'm sure my work would have been different if
I had started it at another part of my life. I was only a few years
older than some of my students when I started. I also had younger brothers
and sisters who I played with and took care of.
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Ron
DiMelfi of San Diego, Calif. asks:
Have you noticed any general differences in the response to your work
and teaching by children who live in industrialized nations vs. non-industrialized?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
The children I've worked with who have had little or no opportunity
to take photographs are usually very careful to master the technology
before taking pictures.
A tradition of craftsmanship may exist in their communities that we
lack in industrialized nations. It is also somewhat harder to encourage
urban children to focus on their environment, but very productive in
the end.
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Matthew
Sage of Alexandria, Va. asks:
Have you ever thought about working with senior citizens?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
I have worked with older people, though not in a
specific group. I found them very interesting and creative.
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Melissa
Corraditti of Denver, Colo. asks
Have you ever photographed your own dreams?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
In a way many of the pictures in "Secret Games" are also my
own dreams in that they're images I've seen in my dreams or ideas that
have come to me in my dreams. As my work is collaborative my images
blend with those of the people I'm working with. Early on I photographed
my own family and myself. These photographs reveal my own and my brothers'
and sisters' childhood dreams and feelings.
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Judy
Yu of New York, N.Y. asks:
Have any of the children you worked with pursued an interest in the
arts?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
Most of the children I've worked with do not come from communities that
produce fine artists. Many of them have artistic traditions woven into
daily life, and it is there that my former students excel.
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Pauline
Lohr of San Francisco, Calif. asks:
Have any of the children you worked with pursued an interest in the
arts?
Wendy
Ewald responds:
I am still very excited by the artistic process -- whether it's writing,
making images, videos, etc. I'm interested in using it to discover what's
going on in the world around me and in provoking thought about the issues
that concern me.
I will be making an Arabic alphabet piece with students in New York
later this year. When the exhibition, "Secret Games" goes
to the Queens Museum next winter, the alphabet will appear on banners
outside the museum.
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