Notice Board

This presentation by Dr. Claudia Mitchell questions what it means for images, especially images on disrupting gender norms to cross into different geopolitical spaces, particularly in a context of feminist backlash. This paper draws on the production and mobilization of an exhibition, Youth United Will Never Be Defeated, based on photos and captions produced by youth from Tanzania, Mali, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mexico and Indigenous youth in Canada. Organized around the prompt ‘gender in my community’, the photos and captions were produced by more than 200 youth in these countries. The youth attending a Transnational Summit in Durban and representing the various countries listed above, selected 30-35 photos for a travelling exhibition, created a title for the exhibition (Youth United Will Never Be Defeated) and a curatorial statement. The resulting exhibition travelled back to each of their countries, but in the full recognition of a number of critical concerns. Can all photos be exhibited everywhere? How did youth themselves respond to knowing that their images would travel. What counts as difficult knowledge and what safeguarding might be needed around images of trans and queer issues exhibited in Jos, Nigeria? Freetown, Sierra Leone? Lethbridge, Canada? 

About
Claudia Mitchell is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University, Director of the Institute for Human Development and Well-being, and founder/director of the Participatory Cultures Lab, a research and training unit funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation program. She works extensively in the Global South and in Indigenous communities in Canada using participatory visual methodologies as a ‘from the ground’ up approach to addressing critical issues in social research, particularly in the context of gender equity. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the award winning journal, Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Everyone is welcome. Light refreshments to be provided.