In a New Land: Photography by Russian Immigrant Youth
A Social Art Initiative Photo Documentary Project

     September 2004 marked the beginning of our Social Art Initiative, In a New Land. This photo documentary project taught Russian immigrant and refugee teens to tell their stories through the lens of a camera, exploring their own, developing cross-cultural identity and their experience as immigrants to California. They also investigated the similarities and differences between their immigration and that of earlier immigrants and refugees.

     More than 40 of their images will be exhibited this Spring (see below) and their work has also been compiled in a beautiful book, available at the Venice Arts Store. Their photographs are personal, including home life, celebrations, and family portraits, and public, including environmental portraits of the people and places on Santa Monica Boulevard, the main thoroughfare in the Russian-speaking community in West Hollywood. West Hollywood is home to a Russian-speaking population of nearly 30%, including families that fled persecution, economic hardship, and/or anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union.

 

     April 15, 2005 will mark the opening exhibition at West Hollywood’s Plummer Park and will move to the Venice Arts Gallery in June 2005.

     In a New Land is a project of Venice Arts conducted in collaboration with the City of West Hollywood, who is providing funding and in-kind support through its Russian Advisory Board and its Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission. Partial support has also been

provided by the Jewish Community Foundation.

     In a New Land is a project of the California Council for the Humanities' California Stories Uncovered campaign, the second statewide campaign of California Stories, the Council’s multiyear initiative designed to strengthen communities through the sharing of stories. The new campaign, led by California youth, will ask people across the state to tell and listen to stories that uncover the reality beneath the headlines, statistics, and stereotypes about California and its people. With youth leading the way, California schools, community centers and libraries will host hundreds of events in April 2005. Creating occasions for Californians to share stories about the dreams that brought our families here, the realities we encounter and the ways living in California continues to change us.

     For nearly 12 years Venice Arts has been providing free multidisciplinary art programs to youth in Venice and other communities, with documentary photography representing one of its core programs. Past Social Art Initiative projects have included The Girls Project, photographically exploring female identity in four communities across America, and Picturing Race, documentation of the World Conference Against Racism, South Africa (2001), and race and identity in Los Angeles (2002). Venice Arts' documentary program is led by its creative director, Pulitzer Prize nominated photographer, Jim Hubbard.


Exhibits:
At the Venice Arts Gallery

Opening Reception Friday, May 20, 2005  6pm
Open through June 30, 2005

Plummer Park, Great Hall, West Hollywood
Reception Friday, April 15, 2005 6pm
Open through May 15, 2005


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