I was immediately excited when hearing what we needed to do for this project. This was my opportunity to bring Photography into the Art Class for a whole 10 weeks! It was slightly daunting in the beginning, how on earth was I going to fit a whole photography project into just 10 weeks? But I eventually managed. I took some time to think about the project as a whole and figure out how best to design this project. I’m glad I did because I realised that I should not limit the whole class to just doing photography. Instead, I asked them to explore the medium a little at least, just to try it out and give it a proper chance. Then the ball started rolling.
Finding two themes that linked to what I wanted to do was most likely the easiest part of the project for me. I have always had a fascination with Identity since I have an identical twin sister, the line sometimes gets blurred. However, I feel that it is an important aspect for teenagers to explore in high school and early adulthood as well, particularly in girls who have so much body shaming, peer pressure and gender exploration within their society. I have noticed this throughout the last months of working at St. Annes Diocesan College in Hilton, KZN. St. Annes is an all-girls high school that, I’m sad to say, has a reputation of eating disorders.
I took this opportunity to do my best to relate the themes of this project to something that they can understand and explore, not just for the sake of doing the project, but to better understand themselves as their own people and not just “because someone else said so”. There have been a number of instances where I have thought to myself, “maybe those people aren’t too good for that girl”, or “her heart is too soft to handle something like this”, and I wish I could make them see that there is so much out there for them, they need to push their boundaries and figure out who they are for themselves.