Exercise - Kingsmead Eyes

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www. kingsmeadeyes.org

One example of collaborative documentary is that of Photographer Gideon Mendel and the school children of Kingsmead, a deprived Hackney school.

Kingsmead Eyes Speak’ is a radical collaboration between the children and staff of Kingsmead Primary School and photographers Gideon Mendel and Crispin Hughes . A class of 10 year old pupils spent an intensive week working with the photographers in the school, then a month documenting their friends, families, community and school life..

I have been looking at the images on the website here ...

ABOUT KINGSMEAD EYES 2009

Kingsmead Eyes was the result of a unique collaboration between photographer Gideon Mendel and 28 pupils from Kingsmead School in Hackney which took place in 2009. The children documented their world over six months, photographing their friends, families, community and school to create an accomplished and vibrant body of work. At the same time Mendel undertook a parallel photographic engagement in the school and the Kingsmead Estate. Using old Rolleiflex cameras he made a portrait of every child in the school. These 249 portraits were all used in this video and assembled into a composite image for the exhibition. With the remarkable diversity and origins of these children in more than 46 countries this became a truly global portrait, taken in a small Hackney school. This video installation was part of the Kingsmead Eyes exhibition which was on display at the V&A Museum of Childhood between November 2009 and February 2010.

ABOUT THE KINGSMEAD ESTATE

The Kingsmead Estate, home to many of the pupils, is recognised as among the highest 4% for deprivation in the UK. The estate has suffered from a negative reputation in the past but conditions have improved in recent years and regeneration initiatives have encouraged a stronger sense of community. The school has played a major role in this turnaround, striving to achieve the highest standards with academic achievement above the national average – all the more impressive considering that 85% of pupils speak English as a second language. The success and creativity of the school has long been a source of local pride. For this project the ten year-old pupils were trained in the use of digital cameras in a series of workshops led by photographer, Crispin Hughes.

Kings Mead Eyes and Kings mead eyes Speak

I really like this idea of photographers working with children.  I think as I am sometimes stilted for ideas I would love their fresh approach.  They have no fear of camera or surroundings and just click away developing their projects.

It is good that the photographers are critical of their work and make them make a selection of their best work, editing harshly and also then looking at their own image in a completely different way and writing a poem to go with it.  This can be either explanatory  or completely imaginary, making a whole new story for their picture.  Giving their picture flexibility and removing any ‘rules’ or restrictions, allowing them to look at their work in many different ways and having fun.

They we free to make anything they wanted keeping it of their home life and surroundings.  They were taught to compose a picture not just snap one, and they experimented with light ( not using a flash ) composition etc ..

I loved to look at their  work and poems, this would be a lovely thing to be apart of.  I really hope the children got something out of this and maybe get them interested in photography in the long term.   I can imagine it was great fun  and something more fun than normal in the school reportoir .. 

At first when I looked at the website it just looked like lots of school pictures of children from a very multi national school and wasn’t sure what it was all about.

I later discovered that each child had their own space and you click on their photo to discover their work, their written poem and the poem spoken on a video link.

This is great the children must be so proud, it makes it accessible if you only want to look at a specific child and I feel all the media types work well together.  In fact very organised.  Much better then my very first glance..