COMMUNICATION IS A CATALYST FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
These videos and blogs are intended to communicate across cultures. They are populated with characters who see the world differently, express their visions, and influence our collective realities.
“Since the beginning of history humanity has modified and scarred the environment to convey some message . ”
Brinkwater Jackson, A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time
“Constructive social change seeks to move the flow of interaction in human conflict from cycles of destructive relational patterns toward cycles of relational dignity and respectful engagement.”
John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination
MEDIA FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
I start with a curiosity to OBSERVE an event that is different from one that I would normally experience.
I encounter people and places on the other end of my lens as a neutral observer, but PERCEPTION always casts a shadow into our environments.
Our cognitive biases influence our understandings of the world around us.
That’s what I RECORD.
As a rapporteur I document the event so that it can be reflected upon later on in the future or instantaneously on the other side of the globe.
Drawing the audience’s attention to a particular moment captured can AFFECT the environment that has been filmed.
Change doesn’t come in a linear fashion, however. Videos add value by expanding the prevailing zeitgeist to include new, alternative storylines.
Chipping away at seemingly intractable social issues this way can reshape their nature.
My aspiration is to strategically add knowledge to our existing world-views and advocate for actions that encourage humanity to EVOLVE into a more enlightened state.
That’s why I call this website
“Insofar as individuals are the makers of documentary texts, the ethical space they occupy with their bodies and their gazes may properly occupy us, but if we are to see documentary representation as a social discourse and institutional practice, we will also have to engage these bodies and gazes in political and ideological terms as well as in the ethical terms of good and evil that are used to hold individuals accountable.”
Bill Nichols, Representing Reality