Retratando La Proximidad. Resultados Fotovoz En Fundación San Martín De Porres

Fotovoz is a participatory photography tool that aims to give voice through image, in a personal and creative way. This Project has ben a 6 hours workshop at the Complutense University of Madrid, divided in two sessions of 3 hours. The first session was devoted to the introduction of Fotovoz, different uses of this tool. The first activity was “Who you are”, a dynamic that allows participants to represent themselves. This represents life; sometimes it is full and sometimes empty. My situation now is like an empty suitcase and I am working to fill it some way. A motivation for me is to come here and share these moments with you, and some other things that I do in my everyday life to change my living conditions. “Universidad en tránsito” is a project that stems from the need to give the opportunity to homeless people to come to university. People, depending on their own social and cultural background, draw themselves alone or with other people. Here in Spain it is more common for people to draw themselves alone…. After this first dynamic, we shared with the participants the basic concepts and theory of Fotovoz: what is Fotovoz, origins, social groups with whom it has been used, how to design social compositions…. During the second day, we worked on the analysis. Each of the participants had to take between 10 and 15 pictures of different spaces that define who they are. Here in Madrid, I have the feeling that I think more when I am on the subway than outside… In this place, if I wake up in the morning and have to enter computer, not only to check emails, just to know what is going on in the world. Exactly in Africa, in Mali, in Syria... Anything you can ask me today, what is going on…. I use to check it here. This is a squatter building near Plaza de España that was closed. I was there only once but it really had an impact on me, mainly because of the people living there. I liked the bound that was created between us. Also because it was a place that made me appreciate my home in a different way because there were a lot of homeless people living there and when we enter the building, without asking for permission, they all welcomed us and that was something that shocked me. It made me realise that we all have our place in the world, even if it is different, and it made me appreciate more what I have. Walking to the street. Plants look nice so I hope the day will be nice too. I don´t know if it is the turmoil, the diversity, the abundance, the colours… The buttons represent Madrid. There are so many people, so different… Different colours, beliefs, ideas and it is all converging. To learn new techniques things that you have lost You also learn how to recycle, to make art through recycling. For me it has been really interesting, to review my own life. It has helped me to know myself a little bit more. The spaces that represent who I am. Mainly, to know the places where I am more myself. It has been a really nice, positive and original experience for me. I had never participated in an activity like this. I have not learned to take pictures or to write speeches, but I have learned a lot from different people that I had not even considered in the past. I have founded them here, and they have opened their lives and shared it with the group. I have found new worlds in new people. Their spontaneity, their joy, their love for life, with their beloved ones, their feelings, their pets, their obsessions… And this is always comforting, to feel the proximity of human beings, of people.