OUR PROCESS

‘Image-making takes us on a journey that involves decision-making. What do you want to include in the frame? What do you want to exclude? What do you want to focus on?’

PARTICIPATORY METHODS

The process more important than the product; our participatory methods make use of all sorts of games, tools, and creative art forms such as role-play, body movement, drawing, participatory analysis, creative writing, meditation, video, dance, music, drama.

It is all about giving people trust and encouragement and use their mistakes and their knowledge as learning and empowering tools. We promote experiential learning, constructive criticism, and positive discussions.

 

 

INSPIRING VIDEOS

We love to facilitate a group to produce or we produce ourselves short films, campaigns, and documentaries to create new narratives. We focus on solutions, empowering and emotional stories to inspire hope and action.

We don’t like to be intrusive and have an intimate documentary approach with a strong cinematic sensibility.

HOLISTIC APPROACH

We use different methods such as meditation, body movement, games, music, drawing, visual and participatory action research and therapeutic tools,  and different type of cameras from DSLR, compact, smartphones, iPad to camera-less or pinhole depending on the project’s needs and limitations.

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ETHICS & REPRESENTATION

Any photography and audiovisual productions should promote dignity and empowerment. The stories told belong to the people who are being represented in the story and any artwork created is own by the individual not by us, not by the partners, clients funders. It should be engaging for the people who take part in it as well as for the audience without losing its authenticity and emotions. 

Our ethics of representations and informed consent process is central to our work.

The ethics of listening and understanding are essential elements in developing participatory methods with images. We believe it is vital to learn from each other and respect religious practices, gender, cultural specificity, and geographical location when designing and conducting projects. Local people and the knowledge that they hold are crucial for developing real and effective solutions to ensure no one feels disrespected or misrepresented.

TAKE TIME

Nowadays, one does not need extensive training to pick up and use a camera and create instantly powerful images and messages. But at Fotosynthesis, we encourage people to take time. Everything is a creative process that needs time to evolve and mature: time to meet new people and connect, time to listen, time to play, time to build trust, time to build consensus as a group, time to think about images before creating them, time to explore, time to have discussions, time to think and reflect, time to make mistakes and learn from them, time to observe, time to create, time to process images. Time to be. Time to create empathy and respect