Trauma Attuned Film & Photography

Trauma attuned film and photography: holding space to consider how to safely and bravely make, consume and use photographic images

Aim: to produce a briefing outlining the dilemmas around how trauma can be represented in a wise way to promote awareness and change personally, creatively and culturally.

How: a one day workshop using Open Narrative Enquiry to draw out good practice from real world examples. This research method uses a combination of appreciative enquiry, world café and socratic questioning to rapidly co-produce a thematic analysis. The outcome is a framework of themes that can guide practice.

Who: a collaboration between Dr Angela Kennedy, Consultant Psychologist (Director at Trauma Informed Community Action), and Dr Max Houghton, Course Leader for MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography College (London College of Communication) and Dr Vivienne Francis, founder of the Refugee Journalism Project and Reader in Knowledge Exchange at London College of Communication (UAL). 

A small invited group who use or support photographic imagery in contexts of trauma. The group will collate examples to form the basis of the analysis from their own experience and work to a structure to produce a coherent framework. The process will be facilitated and written up by AK. All participants who consent to being identified will be credited and able to use the framework.

Nature of examples: 

1. People exploring/ representing their own lived experience.
2. What does it mean to make personal trauma public.
3. Consent and impact.
4. People wanting to use trauma imagery for social or political change.
5. Documentation and images used to inform.
6. Imagery shaping cultural memory.
7. Spectatorship: viewing or consuming trauma related imagery.
8. The boundaries and ethics of good practice.
9. Curating an exhibition/legacy of work/how reception of work changes over time
10. Developing meaning in image and text.
11. Considerations of power, choice and safety in the making and distribution.
12. Intersection with culture and neurodiversity.
13. How to film in a way that makes participants at ease when the topic is triggering.
14. Research about people with lived experience of trauma
15. Different genres eg journalism, art, social justice
16. Different traumas, eg sexual abuse, war, illness or disability, homelessness, bearing witness, intergenerational, racism

Thanks to Stockbridge Music Hub and Clea Friend for hosting this event in their venue as part of their ongoing ambition to co-create community resilience through the arts.