"École Paradis" Special

“L’oeil existe à l’etat sauvage”
André Breton

In France , the photographs of Fernando Guerra served as the basis of a project by students at the École Élémentaire Paradis in Meulan. The exercise, created and supervised by the teacher Katell Jolivet, lasted several weeks and involved a group of 25 nine-year-old students who took their first steps in photography with Fernando Guerra's images as a starting point.

The Project

In the first phase of the project, the group of students had their first contact with Fernando Guerra's work from www.fernandoguerra.com . At this point, the students limited themselves to observing and learning a new way of seeing reality through his images.

The second phase involved an attempt at appropriating a space familiar to the children through photography. With camera in hand, the group photographed their own school in a sensitive, intense and critical way. Already, some views marked by the architectural photography of Fernando Guerra revealed themselves.

Behind all of this visibility inherent in the photographs produced throughout the project, there apparently existed a serious attempt to get the students to reflect upon their own images and decide in an informed way what they intended to include in the image. At the same time, they gradually became aware of the different elements of the image and of the fact that the photographs can select, enhance and show “new” aspects of daily life.

In historical terms, our contact with the world through sight precedes words by thousands of years. At this age, the child abandons in great part his egocentric character and turns towards the world. It is also through sight that the child establishes her place in the world. In this case, photography represents an opportune auxiliary tool in the assessment of this transition.

The third phase was a return to Fernando Guerra's original work. Based on his images, the students carried out an analytical and creative exercise by working on that which the photograph does not show. These children approach that which remains outside the image in a simple and uncompromised way. Through drawing, they attempt to recreate the imagine spaces that the images suggest to them.

It is worth remembering that all images are always part of a personal experience of the world and that we integrate and assimilate these images in a personal manner based on our own history and conditioning. Above all, we should be aware of the fact that we construct the sense of the world we evolve in, as well the representations that circulate in it. This construction work of an imagination based on the imagetic simply proves this.

Conclusion

Through this project, we've confirmed that photography easily adapts to different approaches and levels of performance. Certainly some children were more interested in the photographic process itself, others in the artistic process, and still others in the subject matter. This type of project presents infinite levels of possibilities and applications, while at the same time opening new perspectives in relation to the way the children see and visualize the world

The role of the teacher Katell Jolivet should also be praised. It was she who co-coordinated the whole project. Some familiarity with photographic processes and techniques is not enough (or at least some interest and passion). An exercise of this type implies a careful discussion with the students in order for them to understand (or try to understand) what is most important for them in their images. At the same time, there should be suggestion and guidance to stimulate the pupils and teach them to see, while always maintaining rigorous respect for their intentions and limitations.

For the benefit of our children and our images, we hope that initiatives like this will repeat themselves and that the “Schools of Paradise” multiply.

Miguel Coelho, October 2005