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by Barbara Cervone
With delight, we announce the publication of a new photo essay book from WKCD and Next Generation Press, Fresh Takes on a Flat World: Youth Photos from Across the Globe—in partnership with Adobe Youth Voices.
“In this world,” explains Siqi, the Beijing student whose photo appears on the book’s cover, “when you are looking at someone else, maybe they are paying attention to you as well.” Siqi’s remark is an eloquent stand-in for the reflections of all the youth whose photographs appear in Fresh Takes on a Flat World. Their work came to us in a torrent of creative energy, converging from points around the globe: ten thousand photographs, sent to us by groups working with youth in London, Bangalore, San Francisco, Prague, Beijing, Delhi, Cluj Napoca in Romania, and locations throughout Hungary.
“Show us your lives,” we asked students, when we sent digital cameras to each of those partner organizations, as part of the Adobe Youth Voices initiative. “Help us see the communities you belong to.” These novice photographers eagerly set out to do so, passing cameras among themselves and together discovering how to frame their world through a new lens. Some had never held a camera before, and no one kept records of who took which photograph. The extraordinary image bank that resulted must be collectively attributed to a rising generation at a certain moment in places far and wide, seeing its world anew.
Launched in June 2006, Adobe Youth Voices is Adobe’s global signature philanthropy program, designed to provide youth in underserved communities with the critical skills they need to become active and engaged members of their communities and the world at large. Adobe has committed to providing financial, software, and global volunteer support amounting to more than US$10 million over five years. The Adobe Youth Voices network now includes over 150 sites in 31 countries and over 500 educators in and out of the classroom empowering youth to “create with purpose,” producing a variety of media on topics important to them.
As a founding member of Adobe Youth Voices (AYV), What Kids Can Do (WKCD) has nurtured the photographic instincts and talents of over 250 youth in seven countries, helping them capture and share their corner of the world. Another handful of AYV sites encouraged young people to use the photographic arts to combine images and text in new ways.
Fresh Takes on a Flat World brings together a rich sample of the photographic art created during those years. The collection appears here in three thematic sections, mingling and juxtaposing photographs by students in far-flung sites and circumstances. The choices were not easy. There were hundreds of remarkable photos we could have chosen and as many ways we could have combined them.
“I never knew how much you could say with an image,” says Seattle youth photographer Yvonne. We agree.
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