Metro Pulse/Artbeat/Weekend Academy

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Where:
The Tomato Head, 12 Market Square

When:
Through February 1 (call 637-4067 for hours)

TVA's Weekend Academy students exhibit their photography

by Heather Joyner

Entering the congenial and aromatic Tomato Head Restaurant this month, one can't help but notice three dozen or so black and white prints enlivening the walls. Documenting familiar downtown scenes, the photographs are nevertheless fresh-looking. Hmmmm (you might think to yourself)...now there's an unusual take on the First Presbyterian Church. Then you realize the image that's so captivating was initially seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old child. More than just technically competent, the products of young minds on display exude delight in discovery, and in the means by which choices can be expressed.

The young minds mentioned above have participated in a program called Weekend Academy, part of the TVA University Learning System. Established in 1994, TVAU provides educational opportunities for adults (such as Safety and Emergency Response Training) as well as for inner-city youth. But its Saturday programs for third- through fifth-grade children represent TVA at its community-oriented best. Sponsoring activities like computer and fly-fishing lessons in addition to photography, the Weekend Academy appears to offer something for everyone.

Drawn from underprivileged groups living in Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, the kids who participate in the TVAU program are encouraged to "retain their love of learning at a time when they might be losing interest in school," according to the organization's website. It could be argued that as the nation's largest producer of electricity, with employees in seven states, TVA should indeed concern itself with the future of the region it dominates.

Beyond gaining technical skills that might someday lead to a job, children turned on to photography are permitted alternative modes of self-expression. Furthermore, many people believe that a child's writing skills are enhanced when they are applied to his or her photographic efforts.

Wendy Ewald, Founder and Director of the Literacy Through Photography Program (begun twelve years ago at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies), feels that photography and writing "complement and stimulate one another." She says, "When students work from a photograph that has ties to their own lives, especially a picture they've taken themselves, they are able to write more and with greater ease as they articulate their own experiences." An urban youth activities director in Rochester, N.Y. adds, "Photography programs instill the confidence, discipline and critical thinking necessary for future success in school and the workplace while teaching practical skills and nurturing self-expression. Students learn to take photographs and make their own black and white prints [and] are encouraged to write about their experiences and their images...[they] are able to focus on what they value most in their lives." It's a statement that provokes certain questions regarding photographs now at the Tomato Head.

Although the energy and talent that Weekend Academy students' work reflects is impressive, I can't help but wonder what the kids might have done if not confined to one area—namely, the general vicinity of the TVA Towers. Participating children were understandably limited (presumably for the sake of convenience) to shooting pictures en masse and in the same place. But they were consequently denied the chance to photograph what they know best—their own families and neighborhoods. Regarding projects that explore language, cultural, and racial differences, Ewald says, "Photographs provide a valuable opportunity for students to bring their home and community lives into the classroom [or exhibition] setting. These days, teachers rarely come from the same community as their students. Photographs can give [them and others] a glimpse into students' lives and, in increasingly diverse [settings], give students a way to understand each other's experiences." Photographs from Market Square, Krutch Park, and elsewhere may reveal students' impressions of public spaces in significant ways, but they do not tell us much about the worlds different children inhabit. Worse yet, the message such kids could be getting when directed toward "important places" in downtown Knoxville is that their own neighborhoods do not matter. Some of the images on view at the Tomato Head feature subjects the children apparently think should be captured—like the American flag—versus what might interest them more. In fact, shots of people or abstract photographs of things like shadows seem the most sincere images in the show.

Another concern raised by the exhibit is whether or not "underserviced" children can continue with photography following the academy experience. Princeton (New Jersey) photographer Bruce Berenson, mentor in a program similar to TVA's, says, "You think that maybe in 15 years [a child] may actually take this and end up doing great things with it....[but] they get their cameras and their film through a program, and after it's over, they don't have money for film...it's like saying, 'You're a plant, I'm going to water you for three weeks, and then, dry up.' But their work, it's just remarkable. They get attention and a means to express themselves.... [W]ho wouldn't want that?"

TVA's Weekend Academy, as commendable as it is, is not a unique endeavor. Thank Heavens. Many such programs exist—everything from England's lottery fund-supported Arts For Everyone program and Kenya's Shootback Project to ones offered by Young Audiences, Inc. (a nonprofit organization devoted to art education programs for kids in the U.S.). And no wonder. Photography, as powerful a tool as it is for communication, is essentially quite accessible. However, as with anything else, there are practitioners and there are artists. Perhaps some of the children currently presenting work at the Tomato Head will prove to be the latter.