REC, Reflect. Experiment. Capture, is a project which combines audiovisual production, artistic creation and new technologies with the aim to empower young people and spread a non-violent culture. To reach this goal, one of the actions that the project team is currently carrying out is the development of a training programme made of five workshops, whose purpose is to explore different violence-related topics and support young people to deal with them.
Five organizations are currently working on the design and the testing of the workshops, the so-called REC Labs. Each organization is going to develop one Lab, which will be implemented at the same time in the five involved countries: Spain, Italy, Germany, Indonesia and Kenya.
Fundación INTRAS, as coordinator of the project, set the ball rolling and designed the first Lab – Physical Violence: Torment and being Tormented, where the photographic experimentation was adopted as main working technique. All the partners are now implementing it locally and, as a result, each of them will release an experimental video very soon.
The design of the first REC Lab took in mind our three main imperatives: Reflect, Experiment, Capture. When developing the sessions, it was evident the necessity to give space to reflection: think about what lies behind physical violence, focusing on individual perceptions and experiences has been considered essential since the very beginning. The tricky point was related to the choice of an interesting way to foster critical thinking and work on this delicate topic. Accurate considerations led us to the decision to use the photographic experimentation technique to improve the process. We are playing with images, demolishing them to shape original ones, bearer of new relevant messages. And then we are going to catch these images through the camera, edit and package our final experimental video.
These is just a sample of what we are doing. Who knows what will pop up from this experimentation? Stay tuned and we will discover it together!
