Jim Hubbard, co-founder of the Institute for Photographic Empowerment, will be presenting at the International Visual Sociology Association conference in Bologna, Italy, on July 20-23, 2010. The theme of this year’s conference is “Thinking, Doing, and Publishing Visual Research: The State of the Field?”
During the first panel, entitled “How People Look,” Hubbard will present his paper Everyone is a Photographer. In this paper, he discusses two forms of amateur photography that are garnering attention from mainstream media and academia: citizen journalism and participant photography. He will also discuss the Shooting Back model, which empowers people – mainly at-risk youth – by teaching them to photograph and document their experiences. On a second panel entitled “The Visual Construction of Human Suffering,” Hubbard will discuss the influx of media professionals in Haiti following the earthquake, and question why the Haitians themselves were not given more of an opportunity to tell their own stories. Read the conference schedule here and the conference program here.
A unique university-community partnership between CCLP and Venice Arts, the Institute for Photographic Empowerment (IPE) supports the study and practice of participant-produced documentary projects in photography, film and digital media. The first institute of its kind, IPE serves as a growing resource for people around the world–from journalists, politicians and academics to photographers, filmmakers and project participants–to share ideas and learn from one another.