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Photography, territories and expression: raising awareness through visual education in the Amazon

  • 2024 Winner

House of Photography Guyana-Amazonia - MAZ

La Tête Dans les Images is an association created in 2012 dedicated to promoting photography and media literacy in French Guiana. It organizes the biennial Rencontres Photographiques de Guyane (Guyane Photography Encounters), whose 9th edition will take place in 2025. It also manages around ten cultural outreach projects, participates in three cross-residency programs, and develops, through various initiatives, an ecosystem conducive to photographic creation in the region. It is driven by the conviction that knowing how to decipher and critically examine the countless visual stimuli that surround us today is a crucial aspect of civic engagement. The association's name will become MAZ – Maison de la Photographie Guyane-Amazonie (Guyane-Amazonia House of Photography) in November 2024.

Context

Paneiro Luminoso

In the Amazonian territories, many young people experience cultural and environmental disconnection. Led by La Maison de la photographie Guyane-Amazonie – MAZ, a Guyanese association active since 2012, in partnership with the Brazilian collective FotoAtiva, the Paneiro Luminoso project uses photography and light to reconnect young people with their identity and their territory. Through an arts education approach, it strengthens their resilience while building cultural bridges between French Guiana and Brazil.

  • Country: Brazil
  • Location: Belém
  • Sector of intervention:
    Culture, Heritage
  • Guild Endowment: €84,589
  • Project cost: €128,990
  • Project sponsor: MAZ
  • In partnership with: FotoAtiva Collective
Funder(s):
• Coreom
• La Guilde
• The Fondation de France

Project objectives

  • Strengthening artistic and territorial education in the Amazon
  • Promoting the identity and local environment of young people
  • Adapting national educational tools to marginalized realities

Activities

  • School photography art workshops
  • Educational exchanges with the Brazilian collective FotoAtiva
  • Creation of visual aids for personal and collective expression
  • Disseminating the productions to the general public to showcase the work of the beneficiaries and raise awareness of inclusion issues

Direct beneficiaries

Young people attending school in the Amazon region, teachers and mediators engaged in an approach of artistic education and identity promotion

Expected results

  • Young people reconnected to their territory and their culture
  • An interdisciplinary teaching methodology that has been tested and disseminated
  • Visual productions valued at the local and regional level
  • A strengthened partnership between French Guiana and Brazil on cultural education

A dual support and funding mechanism for overseas civil society organizations, the CORÉOM program – Overseas Regional Cooperation – encourages regional and international cooperation dynamics among associations based in Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion. Financially supported by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Fondation de France, CORÉOM is implemented by La Guilde, with a set of territorial networks and relay partners in the five territories.

Download the project sheet