Photography: Using ‘Postcards’ as an Empathy Probe
Once at design school (Parsons School of Design), we were introduced to the PhD work “(In)Visibilities”, by Danish researcher Lene Hald, from KADK (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts). She was interested in advancing design research methods, and worked with an immigrant-based community at a public school in Copenhagen, trying to make visible the narratives of high school students. To explore their sense of identity and values, she used photography as the medium to make visible the felt sense of their experience, and designed a process in which students engaged with photography as a form of reflection. This is how Lene describes the purpose of her project:
“The PhD project seeks to highlight how the aesthetic and visceral language of photography, design and arts-based practice might be applied to an ethnographic study. It is a project about visibilities and invisibilities, which through a designerly approach to visual field engagement seeks to democratize the process of creating images with people.”
I was very inspired by the subtlety of her work, the photos of the students, and their stories. And a sense of direct agency and possibility that became visible through what she named as “co-designerly experiments on aesthetics”. Lene’s work is in many ways resonant with design’s practice of introducing empathy and reflection probes into a particular context (see the work of Tuuli Mattelmäki). Hence, initiating a process of conversation, that hopefully helps shift the relationship of researcher|practitioner and ‘user’, toward a more democratized, co-creative process.
In 2017, we had a chance of working with public school students in Downtown Los Angeles, as a part of a larger Arts Education Innovation Lab, run by the Presencing Institute, and the Stuart Foundation. We brought an arts-based method called Social Presencing Theater, and used embodied knowing as a way of inquiring into the experience of how their learning was or wasn’t moving forward. Students and teachers used body-based activities to express some of their challenges, obstacles, and current experience of the school, and their larger community. As a method of reflection, inspired by the work of people like Lene and Tuuli, we introduced ‘postcards’ as a way of reflecting back on their experience.
“In the face of these complex social issues, how might students find their voice?” — Delia Reid, Stuart Foundation.
What we did
The method basically included carrying out the embodied activity, whereby students made body poses (which we call ‘sculptures’) to communicate some of the challenges they faced (that is, ‘where they felt stuck in their learning experience’). In groups of five, students would show their ‘stuck’ to one another. One of the group members was a ‘photographer’, in charge of a polaroid camera. That student took a photo, which printed automatically. At the end of the activity, all students had a printed photo of their ‘stuck’, and a postcard. They glued the photo on one side of the postcard, and on the other, they wrote back a message to themselves. “If the stuck were a being, sending you a message, what would it have to say?” Addressing it to themselves, they would begin by “Dear…”
How could we, then, use the postcards to get a sense of what’s happening with the school community, as a whole? Are there patterns, similarities, differences? Can they help us see (with mind, and heart) where the school community is at? We did a few experiments in trying to explore this ‘aerial view’ of the school’s social field (that is, its very social fabric).
Prototype 1
One of the experiments included setting up a gallery of photos on the wall. Just like in a gallery of art or museum, we asked a group of teachers to set up their postcards for ‘exhibition’. They then spent time looking at each other’s postcards, before a final round of conversation.
Prototype 2
Another experiment we developed (with students) around making explicit this ‘felt sense’ of the school’s social field included taking a photo (with a cell phone) of their print postcard, and then setting up a slide show (with a projector, onto a wall) of all the photos. Students sat in a semi-circle, and when their photo showed up on the wall, they would hold a ‘talking stick’ and read out loud to the group the message on the back of their postcards. One by one, the room was filled with their images, and tender voices.
Prototype 3
A few months later, MIT senior lecturer Otto Scharmer told us about a live session on education & learning to be hosted by the Presencing Institute on its major online program (u.lab). He asked us if we could repeat what we did with students in LA, with a larger global audience of teachers, students, parents, and educators who would be watching u.lab. We quickly adapted this reflection method, and taught it during the online live session. We asked the viewers to carry out he same practice (‘where do they feel stuck in the education system?’), and send us a photo. We then divided the photos by their roles (students, teachers, parents, principals, government, etc.) and created a video sequence of them, which was shared back online. The idea behind creating such a video was, again, attending to the question of ‘can we make the education system sense and see itself?’ As Kurt Lewin said, 50% of social systems transformation is about making it visible to itself.
Prototype 4
We also tried packaging cameras, postcards, and journals as a ‘reflection probe toolkit’, and offered that to teachers. We asked them to use the package in their classroom, and share back with us their learnings and insights.
What we learned
I was particularly moved by the prototype 2. The sequential nature of showing the students’ photos while having them read their postcards, created a ‘thick’ experience in the room. It allowed us to smoothly travel from one student’s experience to another, as if weaving through the whole. Because their messages were soft and subtle — and there was little time between one student speaking and another — we had to let go of ‘our ideas about their challenges’, and embrace the beauty of how their current collective experience felt.
For me, the performative nature of this reflection process offered the understanding that ‘ok, this is what it feels like right now to be a part of this learning community’.
Without a wish to change or transform the experience, I learned the beauty of simply witnessing what it is, at that moment in time. I then felt a sense of possibility arising. Because I discovered myself as a witness, with others, I began to notice a sense of openness take place. And the natural trust that something can arise, or emerge from such openness, began to clarify.
As far as the prototype 3 went, collecting the images, and then showing them back (online) was our intention to create a loop in this conversation. However, I still missed an understanding of what was the impact of doing that. Maybe because we took a long time between the week they submitted their photos, and when we finally released the videos (probably a few weeks later), we might have missed out on timing. Also, we did not pay much attention to an online hub where the a final “dialogue” could have taken place, if needed.
For prototype 4, teachers never responded. It was hard for me to understand their apparent non-engagement with us after the program ended. We certainly ran against some structural aspects of how the Los Angeles system of public education works: its hierarchies, teachers oftentimes feeling under the continuous pressure of needing to respond to requests from the government programs. There were also some design issues with the toolkit itself, which created complications in terms of how to get the photos printed (camera films needed to be developed), and there was no specific support as to how they would adapt the activity to their classroom curriculum context.
Overall, these prototypes have made clear to me the importance of the aesthetic or felt dimension in making visible the students’ experience. Design of reflection methods here must introduce spaces of subtlety for reflection to be felt, and shared. It also allows a space for teachers and students to further understand their students’ context, from a heart-level. As the principal of the LA school told us “I was moved to see their photos and read about what they are going through. It is so much. This past year, 13 students attempted suicide in our school. Unfortunately, I only get to know about it when it is too late. I wish I could work with students at where they are at today. And by seeing their postcards, it makes me wonder how to reach out in advance on their behalf”.
Thank you
Much gratitude to Delia Reid (Stuart Foundation), Cynthia Gonzalez, Dennis Fulgoni (Diego Rivera Learning Complex), and the TEAL team at the Los Angeles County Office of Education, for welcoming and hosting us. Thank you to Liz Alperin and Marie Mccormick, for hosting the multistakeholder arts in education lab, which this prototype was a part of. Thank you to the Presencing Insitute team involved in these prototypes: Arawana Hayashi, and Ricardo Dutra.
*This written piece is a part of a larger practice-based research initiative involving Monash University, and the Presencing Institute. Ricardo Dutra currently pursues a PhD in Design at Monash University, and works with choreographer Arawana Hayashi developing methods of action research for systems change, within the Presencing Institute.
