Rachel and Nicole

Since February, CMAP & JUCONI Ecuador have together been running a separate project ‘The Professional Photographers Group’ alongside the weekly art clubs. When I arrived in Guayaquil, I was keen to get stuck into anything photographic I could, and especially work with young people as well as the art club kids, so lucky for me there was already a group of JUCONI Graduates who wanted more help and access to photography, developing interests they have been introduced to as children thanks to CMAP and Art Club. Thanks to the enthusiasm, support and organisation of JUCONI, the group and I have been meeting weekly for workshops and seminars, and have become the official JUCONI events photographers.

(L-R Rachel, Michele & Nicole) The fantastic girls in the 'Professional Photography Group' and the CMAP girls in Guayaquil, Ecuador had a day of fun making a 'pop-up darkroom' in the JUCONI offices a couple of weeks ago.

Blanca, Nicole, Michele, Katie and I ran our one-day-only-darkroom 2 weeks ago, it was a bit of a farewell from me and thank you to everyone supporting our photography, but also, for Nicole and Michele, their first ever dark room experience. It’s so wonderful being with people their first time in the dark room – it is nothing if not magic!

In the morning Katie and I taught the girls to use the pinhole-cameras (aka – drinks cans) and come afternoon we opened the door to the hoards of JUCONI staff who were eager to see the darkroom and develope their own photographs. The students became the teachers in the afternoon, guiding everyone through their first pin-hole experience, explaining how it works (to everyones disbelief!) and introducing them to the darkroom. The experience of becoming the ‘tutor’, for the young photographers, was worthwhile and they did an excellent job – I hope that in future they will be able to share their skills with more and more JUCONI kids by themselves facilitating photography groups.

The fact that we were able to turn the Operational Directors office into a dark room for a day, and were over-run by eager staff wanting to learn, is testament to the support and enthusiasm we recieve from JUCONI Ecuador.

Here’s a selection of the photos…..

If you want to know more about the magic of pinhole photography and using drinks cans as cameras (amongst many other inane objects) read here … http://www.pinholephotography.org/

Rachel x

Somehow, six months have passed since we first touched down in Guayaquil and took over the Club de Arte reigns. We´ve barely had time to think since the last post of photos on this blog; with the printing of exhibition photos, t-shirts, making of exhibition films, project evaluations and planning four separate exhibitions in the same week there has certainly been no time to think of saying farewells… So, lucky for us neither of us have to just yet! As I recall our CMAP sister Lynn once warned us ´no-one ever wants to leave´.. And so here we remain, Chloe has stepped in to partner the next Art Educator Katie until January 2013 (making Guayaquil her home for a grand total of 13 months!) and I myself will be returning for one month only so Chloe can head to the mountains for a long-overdue restbite. Today the exhibitions are behind us, the wonderful new CMAPer is with us and plans are being made for the the next project… I can reveal that it involves kaleidoscopic colour, rainbows and quite probable mahem, plus there will be more exciting colourful films being made!

So I guess you want to see what these exhibitions looked like? We kicked off on monday with the first community exhibition in Isla Trinitaria… as always in Isla, we had a great turn out and before long there was much music and dancing, the group especially loved showcasing their ´t-shirts for advocacy´in an adhoc catwalk show!

On Wednesday we held the Balerio Estacio exhibition in the brilliant new Club de Arte location of ‘Transito Amaguaña’ highschool. It´s a busy school and lots of students and teachers came to admire the Club de Arte exhibition and to watch the films we showed in the auditorium.

Thursday was our Nueva Prosperina exhibition, again with a great presence of friends and family. The event was led by the wonderful Pablo, and there was much laughter and applause as we played games and congratulated the kids on their achievements.

Fiiinnnallllly come Friday we had the big day – we had invited all 70 art club kids and their families, from 3 sectors of the city, to come together for a grand exhibition in the Museum Nahaim Isais in the centre of Guayaquil, where the kids had a chance to show their families their work, meet other art club kids and see each others work.

Huge thanks go to the incredible JUCONI team who made it all possible – as always they were amazingly supportive and enthusiastic about the event, giving their time to help organise and man the buses, provide the great speeches and congratulate the kids, and generally keeping order on the day when everyone was palpably excited! We had music provided by a great Marimba band lead by Steven (a Juconi graduate and friend of art club), and also Shirley (a Juconi volunteer) who played and sang sing-a-long classics that the kids loved. And then of course was the main event, showcasing 70 photos taken by the kids of art club, 70 t-shirts presenting the opinions of each individual and raising awareness of the things they want to help, or want to celebrate within their communities, the massive Pirate murals and props from the play finally all displayed together in one great installation, and of course the films made during each project; the pirate play, the puppet dance, drawing movement, and a slideshow of fotos del proyecto nuestro medio ambiente/photos from the project ´our environment´….

CLICK THE LINK TO WATCH OUR PHOTO SLIDESHOW OF ´NUESTRO MEDIO AMBIENTE´ PHOTOS SHOWN ON THE DAY-