Draft:Seeing for Ourselves

• Comment: Needs independent sources. UserMemer (chat) Tribs 18:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

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Seeing for Ourselves (SFO) reports on its website that it is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization leveraging participatory photography to empower marginalized individuals and communities, enabling them to document their lives or concerns visually. SFO then works with its clients to promote these new visual narratives in gallery exhibits, publications, film, and social media. The nonprofit advises that it operates as a nonsectarian 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

History

The Seeing for Ourselves website indicates that George Carrano founded the nonprofit in 2010. Jonathan Fisher came aboard as its storyteller, while Carrano recruited Chelsea Davis as its photography instructor.

Recognition

All Seeing for Ourselves endeavors have been uniformly praised.

John T. Hill, a former director of graduate studies in photography at Yale University and the author of Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye, contributed a blurb to their public housing book while Noam Chomsky did the same to their criminal justice book.

Their public housing book Project Lives was featured or reviewed by approximately two dozen local, national, and international media outlets. The New York Times observed that "Most New Yorkers know what public housing looks like from the outside, but a bracingly simple compilation of pictures takes us into the interiors of the buildings and thus into the residents' startlingly ordinary lives." Politico Magazine remarked, “Given the projects’ financial struggles, a group of New York-based photographers had one question: What if the housing projects were presented in such a way as to make people think they were worth preserving?”

BuzzFeed said: "Beautiful…an unprecedented and intimate look into the lives of New York City public housing residents."Time and Slate covered the book straightforwardly.

The New York Review of Books used a photograph from Project Lives to illustrate an essay on poverty. New York Magazine termed Project Lives "A startlingly simple and optimistic portrait" of project life. The Long Island Press remarked on the large impact of the physically small volume.

National Public Radio's Leonard Lopate of WNYC called the book “fascinating.” Refinery29 opined, "An incredibly moving book." aCurator Magazine praised the book from a photographic perspective.

On local TV, NY1 described Project Lives as "a wonderful book." WPIX 11 commented, "A great story!" CUNY-TV called the photography “stunning." Meanwhile, the art media outlet Hyperallergic discussed the book's photography then on exhibit at the Hunter East Harlem Gallery in New York, stating "Through these visual studies, we are given a human story to extend and deepen our understanding of how vitalizing below-market housing is to city inhabitants. This show could easily have wound up being sentimental or overly academic, but the movement from inside to outside makes it remarkably clear-eyed."

In 2015, the book was named Best Photography Book by the New York Book Festival. The following year, the volume placed as a finalist in both the current events/social change and multicultural non-fiction categories at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Also in 2016, the work won the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Awards as the year's most thought-provoking book.

Meanwhile, the criminal justice programming was covered favorably by the local media in the context of a gallery exhibit in Brooklyn in 2018, with the News12 Brooklyn reporter explaining, "From the use of light and shadow to depth of field, they learn how to tell a story through a camera lens—through their eyes....Seeing themselves and their world in a whole new way." Covering another exhibit in Manhattan in 2019, the News12 Bronx reporter advised, "For some, it has been an opportunity for a second chance." Within an Eyewitness News portrait of innovative programming by the New York City Department of Probation, an extended interview was conducted with a photography program participant and his agency mentor, with the host exclaiming, "This program really is changing lives and hopefully helping to change the criminal justice system."

The film and book In a Whole New Way were also covered positively. There was a mention in the Palo Alto Weekly, which termed the film "a pioneering path to criminal justice reform"; a 2023 episode of the podcast Free Thinking With Montel, on which the host Montel Williams concluded, “I’m a big fan of yours now;” and a 2023 episode of the podcast In Conversation with Frank Schaeffer, on which the host remarked, “Both of these books [Project Lives and In a Whole New Way] are sort of monumental works of art as well as social commentaries.”

"You've allowed us to see the world through others' eyes. Your work is changing the world!" enthused the host of the trucker radio show Dave Nemo Weekends. "An incredible book....a remarkable project....a groundbreaking endeavor," opined the host of the Stories From the 78 podcast. "The photos are great but the stories are amazing as well," concluded the host of Conversations Live with Cyrus Webb.

Deeper coverage characterized the coverage by criminal justice media. On a 2023 episode of the podcast The Criminologist, the host observed, “I’ve seen the film. It’s incredible.” On a 2024 episode of the podcast Prison POD, the host termed the entire body of Seeing for Ourselves work “a wonderful project.”

The film In a Whole New Way has won scores of awards to date. The eponymous book placed as a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

On its part, the climate change program was warmly covered by the Southern Forecaster in Maine, where the pilot effort was conducted in 2023, while the teaser film My Climate Future was named Best Short Documentary by the Florence Film Awards.

Impact

The impact of Seeing for Ourselves' work on New York City public housing is unclear. SFO programming does appear to have resonated within the criminal justice system in several ways.

In 2020, The Philadelphia Inquirer showcased the criminal justice program in contrasting New York City probation positively with hometown practice, in an apparent effort to encourage reform the latter.

On the Peaceful Prisons Podcast, the host opined that the criminal justice work “has helped shift the way we view communities impacted by the justice system.”

When the film was screened virtually by Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in 2022, Cumberland County District Attorney Jonathan Sahrbeck offered, “This is something that’s been out there, but nobody kind of put two and two together. It’s giving people the tools to take control of their environment and be beneficial to themselves and also beneficial to the community….If you can really get those peer-to-peer sort of supports out there, then hopefully it’ll be somebody that doesn’t fall into the trap of the criminal justice system.” Maine State Representative Rebecca Millett observed, “What I took away from the film is how critical the role of arts is in terms of helping people develop—or rediscover, in this case—self-confidence, reclaiming their stories, finding community."

Finally, the film was embraced by the national community corrections industry, with a workshop held at the annual conference of the American Probation and Parole Association in 2022 as well as a screening at a plenary session of the 2023 annual conference. In a panel discussion at the plenary, New York City probation officials reported that the programming resulted in stipends, teaching gigs, paid photo shoots, and photograph sales, while even offered to community residents to keep them on the right path.