EXHIBITION
Fostering Photovoice (2023) is a group photography exhibition that reflects the lives and experiences of youth impacted by foster care. The project was conceived by a Photovoice Research Collective that included the six artists whose work is featured here—all former foster youth between the ages of 18-25 residing in Los Angeles County. Also involved were several UCLA undergraduate and graduate students with lived experience in foster care or expertise in using an arts-based empowerment method called Photovoice for research and social policy.
The Collective came together over 7 weeks during summer 2023. The project began by formulating questions to guide the artists’ self-exploration: How did involvement in the child welfare system change you and your family connections? What changes to the system would you like to see due to your experiences?
After developing these overarching questions, they drafted a series of prompts to guide their photographic process:
Prompt 1: What do I want people to know about my experience in foster care and how it impacted me?
Prompt 2: What do I want people to know about the system’s impact on my family connections?
Prompts 3 & 4: What system changes would have improved my experience, and are necessary to improve the experiences of families and protect sibling relationships?
The exhibition is organized by prompt and reflects differences in the views of each artist. It includes reflections on who the youth are, how they think about family, and how they would have liked the system to respond to and support their needs.
Overall, the series invites the viewer to reflect on what they believe about foster youth and the foster care system, including any biases they may have, and to consider how to best support these young people who enter state care through no fault of their own—both as children and as they transition to adulthood.
Confirmed Showings:
Kerckhoff Art Gallery in Kerckhoff Hall at UCLA, January 22-27, 2024
Cal State Long Beach University Student Union Art Gallery, May 1-10, 2024
West LA College Art Gallery, May 20-24, 2024
UCLA Pritzker Center, October 23-December 13, 2024
Barnsdall Junior Art Center Gallery, January 25-March 8, 2025 - Open Thursday-Saturday, 11am-4:30pm