Open Exposures offers a series of workshops that examine how people of color in the diaspora experience the complex relationships between travel, colonization, and photography.

There are no Upcoming Workshops at this time.

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Past Workshops

The Open Exposures curriculum emerges from the tension between being a diasporic traveler while also navigating the maintenance of colonialism inside the structures of tourism and commercial photography.

Louis Bryant designed Open Exposures workshops as a space for people of the diaspora to trouble that tension and find ways to be in right relationship with the communities and land we seek to visit. The first iteration of the workshops began in Spring 2023 at Oakland Arts and Healing, on the Unceded Huchiun and Lisjan (Ohlone) territory (Oakland, CA). As we continue to offer more workshops here on Turtle Island, we are also dreaming to facilitate even more workshops internationally.

A group of participants gather around a table for our first workshop at Oakland Arts and Healing, on March 18, 2023. One of the participants is sharing a photo on their phone, a photo of a place they brought to the workshop to discuss with fellow participants. Another participant is reading cards designed for the workshop to facilitate careful and critical literacy of photographs.

A group portrait of participants and facilitators from our first workshop. We stand and smile together, at the end of our day after having just shared images and reflected on photographing from a diasporic position.

FAQ

  • For now, these workshops are for those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color within the global diaspora, including mixed and white-presenting people, as we center the particular ways BIPOC people are impacted by the legacies of colonization, the industry of tourism, and the complicated power of photography.

  • No—we plan to organize both in-person and virtual workshops.

  • The location of the workshops reflect the myriad of home bases of our members. The first series of workshops took place on the Unceded Huchiun and Lisjan (Ohlone) territory (Oakland, CA).

  • Yes! We are building the funding and the curriculum to offer both domestic and international travel opportunities with the Open Exposures program.

  • Cost will vary depending on time, materials, and resources. The cost for the workshop series was sliding scale, from $5-30. Compensation went towards facilitator labor and materials. When we have access to workshop resources, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.