Beyondmedia Education is thrilled to announce that Women’s eNews has named Executive Director Salome Chasnoff as one of the 21 Leaders for the 21st Century and the winner of the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism. These prestigious awards are bestowed upon visionaries who are committed to improving the lives of women and girls.
Touted as one of seven women who "Invent a Better Future," Chasnoff realizes her vision of a better world through her work as an independent filmmaker and her leadership of Beyondmedia Education, a nonprofit organization that provides free services to women and girls in the highest-need communities: young women with disabilities, girls in foster care, girls in low-income neighborhoods, girls at high risk of incarceration, immigrants and refugees. Beyondmedia encompasses four programs: "Girls! Action! Media!," in which young women discuss issues of concern while learning media arts and technology skills; "Q'd In Media," which supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in organizing and educating communities; "Women and Prison," which helps incarcerated women and girls, former prisoners and their families use media arts to tell their stories; and "Teach Beyondmedia," which offers media-making skills and curricula ideas to teachers and students in public schools throughout Chicago.
According to one young woman who has participated in Beyondmedia programs, “If I hadn’t been in that workshop, I would never have become the activist that I am today. A door opened. I learned that there are other people out there who care about what I care about and together we can change things.”
Salome has an M.A. in Theatre and Performance and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. She has been an arts educator for more than 25 years in university and community settings, and has produced more than 25 works, several dedicated to expanding media access for the diverse stories of women and youth.
Please support Beyondmedia Education’s programming by making a donation or purchasing a video.
To counter sexual health misinformation circulating throughout high school halls, Chicago-based Beyondmedia released HIV: Hey It's Viral! The packet which includes a short movie, a workbook and an activist guide is designed to empower young people and encourage them to get involved with HIV/AIDS issues.
Since its February release, public schools in Chicago have adopted the workbook into their sex ed curriculum. The innovative film mixes schoolbook-type lessons with HIV-positive youth sharing their real-life stories.
Most important, it emphasizes the seriousness of the epidemic without using myths or scare tactics. "We want young people to get true information to make positive choices and influence their peers to do the same," says Simon Fisher, Beyondmedia's distribution coordinator. Start spreading the news!
Aula Intercultural - June 24, 2009. english link | spanish/espanol link
| In this interview, Executive Director Salome Chasnoff and Program Director Tara Malik discuss the importance of using media tools in their projects as well as their reflections about multicultural education. In addition, they talk about their most recent project focusing on HIV education, how this issue is treated in the United States and how this affects youth. |
Andrea GarcÃa: You have worked over the years with a wide range of groups: people with disabilities, young people with diverse sexual orientations, women survivors of violence and prison. With all this experience, what ways have you found as best practices to work in multicultural education?
Salome Chasnoff: One of the ways to expose students to different cultures, different points of view, different ways of seeing a topic, is to screen movies in the classroom that can provoke discussion. In this way, the teacher need not be viewed as promoting a particular perspective, but rather creating a space where people can be presented with diverse views that can come through videos and guest speakers as well as through allowing students in the classroom to express themselves around different issues.The teacher is only the moderator. To me, multiculturalism is not just a concept or a description, it's an action. It's a way of actively addressing topics, for example, that permits the expression of the diversity that already exists in the room. It's a way of promoting understanding. You create opportunities. We as activists and art educators do that, and teachers could do that too.
A.G.: So Beyondmedia uses video and art as tools to promote understanding about the situations of those who participate in the projects. How do you work in that direction?
S.C: The workshops last many months. Through this process, participants open up increasingly about the issues that they deal with in their lives. We ultimately focus on one issue that is central to their identity as a group. We give them many different kinds of activities to express themselves artistically and creatively: they make journals, performances, photography, and so on, learning to talk about their issues through art. We guide them in making a group film about it. So the film is expressed through their own voices, out of their own lived experiences, and results from this intensive group process. Afterwards, those involved in the project screen the film for different audiences and facilitate post-discussions. Through this process, they become experts on their issue, and they assume leadership roles in public discussion. It is a way for them to transform their personal experience into personal expertise and raise public awareness of their issues.
Tara Malik: It also lets them take ownership over their own lives, giving them a sense and form of control. They recognize how they perceive themselves and how other people are perceiving them, because they are creating the media themselves, instead of somebody else pointing a camera at them.
A.G.: You work with difficult situations that people in the group have to deal with. How are you able to create a comfortable atmosphere?
S.C.: By teaching them how to use the cameras and take ownership of the product and the process, they feel they are representing themselves. We also view media made by others, commercial and alternative media, and discuss how people like them are being represented. These media literacy sessions expose them to the politics of representation and give them a critical perspective, which they bring to their own work. So, gradually, they become not just victims of violence or discrimination or whatever; they become critics of a system using cameras to present their critique. They become empowered and the atmosphere reflects that.
T.M.: When there are safe spaces created, people are comfortable in them because after a period of time there is a reciprocal nature about it. I don't think Beyondmedia people go into the programs thinking "I'm going to teach you this, my knowledge is very valuable and I'm going to pass it on to you." It's more a sharing back and forth that builds that comfort and mutual respect.
A.G.: How would you move this experience with groups into the classroom?
S.C.: It's important to recognize that the students have lives outside the classroom. They are dealing with the same issues of violence, harassment, discrimination, ageism, racism, gender oppression, and so on. When teachers recognize and acknowledge students' outside lives, the academic environment can offer opportunities to make school more relevant. I don't mean the classrooms should become all about students' lives, but try and make connections where they already exist. You can talk about the issues through a movie, so people don't have to directly expose themselves.
A.G.: Your work has a feminist point of view that you engage in each workshop or process. How do you address the intersection between gender and multiculturalism?
T.M.: A good way to address this is to invite guest speakers who have different gender identities, who are maybe from the same cultural background as the students.
S.C.: We have a movie called "Can LGTBQ + School = Safe?" that explores the problems faced by queer youth in school settings. The principal of one school who was interviewed in the video explains that years ago he encountered a former student at an event who told him, "I wish I had known when I was in the school that you were gay. That would have made all the difference." He learnt so much from that moment. He decided from then on to be out. This is true for any gender expression, any cultural identity, any point of view: A teacher is in the position to help students feel accepted. There are many ways to communicate that acceptance: by the films that are shown in the classroom, by the guests brought in, the language used, the books read, the flyers posted on the walls... It's so much easier for students to learn when they feel accepted.
A.G.: Your last video is about sex education, a big issue for students, and difficult to approach. How did you work on it? How did you detect the students' needs?
T.M.: Three organizations collaborated on the project to be able to approach the subject of HIV and AIDS in a variety of ways: through media production and media literacy, theater and dance, health and sex education.
S.C.: We started three years ago. In July of 2007 we facilitated a two-week intensive workshop with 28 youth. We spent a year preparing the curriculum for it. One of the organizations spent that year interviewing people about their experiences of sexual education. They asked them what they knew about sexuality, how they learnt it, what they learnt in schools, what they learnt in their families, what they learnt in their communities, what they would have wanted to learn... People of all ages were interviewed, including some who were in school a long time ago.
A.G.: What did you find in that research about sex education?
S.C.: For the most part, people are fed misinformation, myths and morality. Fear is used to try and control young people's behaviors, and the results are often not only not helpful, but harmful. We wanted to be very conscious of the effects that kind of education could have on a person's life or sense of self-worth. Our objective was to create an educational environment that was open, honest, positive, LTBGQ inclusive, and directed toward promoting good health and well being - and promoting reality. By reality, I mean taking into account how young people actually live their lives, so the information we were sharing would be useful to them.
A.G.: Why do you think the people you interviewed received harmful sex education?
S.C.: There are many reasons. For one, I think educators themselves are not equipped to deal with these sensitive topics. In the United States, many people that are charged with teaching these classes are not sex education teachers; they could be science teachers but most of them are gym teachers. Another reason is adults are not in a position of taking responsibility; that is, they don't want to sound as if they are promoting open sexual practice among their students. A third is that, in public schools particularly, everybody is very worried about what parents think, as parents have a lot of power to exert over the professional survival of teachers and administrators. Finally, it is not uncommon for teachers to use the sex ed classroom to advance their own religious views. Sex ed is not taught like other academic subjects, where the teacher wants to transmit some form of knowledge. Here it's often to scare kids into behaving in a certain way. Many teachers make students sign an abstinence agreement. This is an example of a class that relates to students' lives but often in a destructive way.
T.M.: This is especially hard for LBGTQ youth. A lot of them were saying that teachers are promoting their own personal agendas in the classroom, so if a gay student were asking "How I can have safe sex," the teacher would say "That's not allowed and you shouldn't do it," instead of answering the question. The students have to use other ways of gathering information, some of which may be unreliable.
A.G.: Did you find a diversity of cultural backgrounds in the students you working with or in your research? How can you make a video around this issue that includes several voices? Could people from different backgrounds understand the message or feel that these are their concerns too?
S.C.: The approach we take is that diverse people can meet around a particular topic and create a space where all points of view and all experiences are valid and needed. So then you end up with a piece that a wide range of people can relate to. Young people are always curious about what other youth are doing in other parts of the city - especially in a place like Chicago, a big city where neighborhoods can be pretty homogenous. Young people feel trapped in their neighborhoods and confined to too-narrow lives, and they have this desire to move out and learn about what other young people are thinking and feeling, what they're dealing with.
A.G.: So the point is to connect with the age, with the motivation of young people, regardless of the cultural origin.
S.C.: Yes, that's what I mean.
A.G.: Do you think that for teachers this video could be useful to start speaking about sex education?
S.C.: I think it is really useful. Every young person has a lot of questions, which the video attempts to answer in a direct and easy to understand way. The video addresses what HIV is, who gets it, how you can prevent it, what happen if you get it. The voices in the video are young people like them, voices they can trust, so it is a kind of 'safe space.' The teacher in the video and the health educators model an open attitude. The video encourages teachers to have open discussions in their classrooms. There is an educator's workbook on the DVD that provides teachers and group facilitators with all kinds of tools for having those discussions. There is also a youth activism guide to assist students in getting involved in the issue and making a difference.
Youth Media Reporter - June 12, 2009. link
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Chicagoans and many people throughout the country have seen news reports that either open or close with a body count - at the time of this writing, for example, 36 Chicago Public School students have been killed since the beginning of the academic year. |
But much is missing from this macabre recitation of numbers. The focus on murder blurs our perception of the range, depth, and pervasiveness of violence. Perhaps most troubling, youth voices are systemically excluded from coverage - not only in the mainstream media, but in almost all media - and young girls are increasingly perpetuating violence. One consequence is that the media misrepresent youth involvement in violence, routinely characterizing them as either victims or perpetrators.
We call on the youth media field to forge visible spaces for young people - particularly young women - to talk as authorities on the violence in their lives, and to reflect on strategies for avoiding, combating, managing, and surviving violence. By unveiling violence through their conversation and projects, young people become active creators of constructive, educative media, rather than passive consumers of media that depicts teens as marginal, menacing, and intractable problems.
When Youth Leadership Council member Crystal was asked why she is involved youth media to combat violence, she replied, "I feel like as of now we don't have a voice, we don't have a way we can express what we're feeling." With the inclusion of young people's insights in an analysis of violence, the chance that we will understand it in all its complexity and develop effectual solutions is greatly increased.
Beyondmedia Education, Girls, and Violence
Beyondmedia Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to using media and workshops for greater understanding of women's issues, works primarily with young women. We have become increasingly concerned with the continual rise in both arrests of and acts of violence committed by girls and young women. More than ever, adolescent females are entering gangs - some female-only, like the Chicago-based "Lady Taliban," which has begun to communicate their membership and display weaponry on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.
The new uprising of girl gangs is occurring in conditions of almost unthinkable violence. For example, one south side neighborhood where Beyondmedia works is Englewood, which tops all Chicago neighborhoods for reported crime. In a recent media literacy and production workshop one young teen was absent from our Dreamcatcher workshop. Her friend recounted how over the weekend this young woman had gone to a friend's house, where she and three others were kidnapped by the friend's stepfather, driven to another city, held captive at least 24 hours, raped, and abandoned in a desolate field where they were attacked by wild dogs.
This story sparked another 14-year-old girl to share that as she left school one recent afternoon a man began shooting a gun outside her school; the next morning on the way to school, she heard a man's voice insistently calling out to her. When she finally turned around, she saw him raping a 13-year-old girl. "How do they expect us to live our lives and do what we're supposed to do in all this insanity?" she demanded to know.
Chain of Change
Though mischaracterized by the news, violence involving youth is largely happening off school grounds, and much is not school-related. Many young people recount acts of violence in their neighborhoods and homes, sometimes involving family members and members of the local community. Much of the violence is also attributed to gang activity, a historic problem for the city of Chicago.
These acts of violence are not equally distributed throughout the city but are more of a problem on the city's largely disadvantaged and under-resourced south and west sides. As a call to combat violence in these areas, two years ago Beyondmedia launched Chain of Change, a project that organizes youth to reflect on, dialogue about, and produce and share media on the subject of violence without risk of censorship, embarrassment, or recrimination. Chain of Change is one example of a youth media initiative to critically disrupt the normalization of neighborhood violence and amplify the perspectives and solutions crafted by young people.
Part of the Girls! Action! Media! program, participants organize around everything from housing to sexual exploitation, immigrant issues, girls in foster care, economics, and queer issues. The main feature is the video project, created with equipment provided free-of-charge by Beyondmedia Education and uploaded to the Chain of Change interactive website (link: www.chainofchange.com). The website enables the participating groups to share their experiences of violence in their particular communities and, together, come up with ideas as to the roots of violence and how to end it.
Furthermore, Chain of Change networks with other groups and adults to raise awareness of the issues they find pressing, whether it is bullying in schools, domestic violence, relationship abuse, or gang recruitment. The website has been redesigned to enhance its social networking capabilities and to make more room for textual expression, reports, interviews, and blogging entries.
We've found that young people living in violence need a forum and space to explore, discuss, and identify what violence is. Their videos capture their views on the diverse forms of violence not depicted in the media.
For example, Sandra Husic of the Empowered Fe Fes, a support and action group of young women with disabilities aged 13 to 24, shares important insight on the ways violence affects this demographic:
"I always got picked on for my size, for my religion, and all that. One time this guy grabbed my wheel chair and said, 'You want me to throw it in the trash can?' In high school I had a girl put her foot on top of my wheel chair and almost flip me over. I told the teacher about it, and I told the dean. She didn't get suspension. All she got was, "Well, she does not have disabled people in her family, so she doesn't understand the disability world," and the next day she was in school."
Kimberly Wilson, the Girls Organizing Coordinator of Access Living, the organization hosting the Empowered Fe Fes, expressed the special difficulties that many of the Fe Fes face.
"In my interactions with young women with disabilities, I have noted that many seem to have a higher tolerance for domestic violence in romantic and family relationship than non-disabled women. Dating poses a greater difficulty for many disabled women because they have a visible disability. And many of these women have reported accepting physical abuse because they fear that speaking up will result in being alone. In addition, many young disabled women reported being verbally abused in their own homes, but are afraid to report it because they may find themselves homeless."
In participation with Chain of Change, Empowered Fe Fes created and performed a skit demonstrating bullying, which they filmed and uploaded to the site. They also brainstormed about ways of dealing with potential violence and actual violence in the future.
Another group, Kids Off the Block, an organization that seeks to give at-risk, low-income youth positive alternatives to gangs, drugs, and violence, participated with a video about the reasons behind male-on-female physical abuse. Their founder, Diane Latiker, said:
"Through video [young people] are able to express themselves without being scared. They are uncomfortable standing in front of a huge group of people they don't know, but here at Kids Off the Block they are comfortable so their responses are real, they don't just say what they think adults want to hear."
Results
As a result of Chain of Change, one change we are seeing is that the conversations about violence led by young women are taking place across neighborhood and identity. For example, Global Girls, another COC contributor, created "When TOMs Attack," a video inspired by their personal experiences dealing with sexual harassment and assaults from "Thirsty Old Men." In the process of making the video, the girls talked about their experiences with TOMs and also came up with potential solutions to protect themselves from this unwanted attention from older men. The girls were so inspired by participating in COC that they went on to create a traveling stage production by the same name to reach younger girls and start a conversation about this pervasive form of violence and provide solutions.
Another change we have seen is the expansion among youth of what constitutes violence. Mainstream media's seeming equation of violence with homicide is the reason why one young woman thought "real" violence was only school or community shootings. She wanted to talk about bullying, but wasn't sure it was a valid form. Participants not only feel their own power when they express themselves through media, but feel justified in the feelings they have when their voices are legitimated.
By creating spaces for young people to contemplate their experiences, youth media can empower and embolden youth to express themselves to adults, furthering the objective of getting youth voices into the discourse on violence. Networking additionally creates a wide community where participants see that they are not alone in what they are facing, glean ideas for new approaches to their own issues from other participants' work, and recognize that they can speak legitimately on violence.
In order for the youth media field to better serve youth, the topic of violence must be discussed and young people encouraged to analyze, situate, and craft solutions. We encourage the field to embed the following recommendations into existing programs:
Next Steps
Youth media represents a wedge in the fight against violence. It can create spaces for young people to connect, learn from each other, cross boundaries, and build self-esteem. Furthermore, when youth media projects are coupled with outreach and forums for networking, it can stimulate constructive dialogue across generational, occupational, and other differences, helping to erode mistrust and build respect, important elements in diminishing violence. We believe that if consumption of violent media increases the incidence of aggressive behavior, the creation of media to combat violence, which teaches non-violence, can decrease reliance on aggressive behavior as a way to resolve potentially violent encounters.
Youth media programs must engage young people to share their insights, experience and analyses of violence that is unfortunately, an intensely pervasive element of life outside of schools in cities like Chicago, and in many rural areas. Young people must be given a space to articulate violence and use media tools to dismantle violence, its roots and causes, piece by piece.
Given various alternative media platforms like Chain of Change, youth media must signal other groups that support young people's anti-violence efforts, those outside of the community, and in ethnic and gender organizations geared to the same goals. Our collective aims will increase the chances that young people will invest time, attention, energy, and enthusiasm in the project, the end product, the dialogue, and the future.
Medill Reports - May 14, 2009. link
With personal accounts from affected teens themselves, a new HIV/AIDS education video will begin making the rounds in Chicago Public Schools this fall.
"Instead of letting the authorities have the voice, we give the camera to the folks most affected," said Simon Fisher, distribution coordinator with Beyondmedia Education in Chicago. "It's sort of a combination sex ed video, the science behind AIDS and also is a way to dispel fears."
Teens are notorious for tuning out authority figures when it comes to advice and prevention. That's why when Beyondmedia Education, Howard Brown Health Center and About Face Youth Theatre teamed up to create a 20-minute video called "HIV: Hey, It's Viral!" they let youth be the stars.
The video isn't coming a moment too soon, said Jessica Dubuar, a youth case manager at the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago. HIV/AIDS has become a much more manageable disease. Although this is largely positive it also creates some misconceptions, she said.
"I think it becomes a joke," Dubuar said. "I think there are messages out there that convey it as a manageable disease like diabetes."
The numbers seem far from manageable, though. Currently, 20 percent of Illinoisans with HIV/AIDS are under the age of 24, and this age group makes up almost half of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses.
In an attempt to bring more information to teens in school, Fisher and others worked with Chicago Public Schools to ensure the content met the school system's standards. Making sure the video could be shown to students was one of the producers' main goals, he said.
"You can have a video, but you have to make sure it gets used throughout the school, not just in health class but to bring HIV/AIDS into the radar of public knowledge," he said. "This is a great tool for communicating, but many groups struggle with what's allowed to be shown to youth."
The cooperation paid off, and Chicago Public Schools plan to show "HIV: Hey, It's Viral!" beginning in September 2009. The idea for the film began about two years ago and the final product will be released for screenings beginning May 20.
HIV/AIDS education has to improve in order to decrease the growing number of affected youth, said Fisher. Judging by the statistics, teens obviously aren't getting the information they need to protect themselves.
"Abstinence-only education has been horrendous for teens in the U.S.," Fisher said. "There's no reason why HIV and AIDS should be increasing among a teen population."
Dubuar supports the collaborative video and agrees that sex education in general is lacking in the school system. With teens, who are just discovering their sexuality and beginning to form habits, she said HIV/AIDS education is crucial.
"There's such a stigma about talking about sex in school," Dubuar said. "Let's be real: we're talking about adolescents here. If you tell them not to do it, they'll probably just try it sooner."
In addition to the film, the "HIV: Hey, It's Viral" project includes a Web site, programming and performances. The group aims to help teens feel empowered and informed and able to make healthy â and individual â choices.
"In abstinence-only education, you're not even given the possibility to decide for yourself," Fisher said. "We want teenagers to know their choices and how to be safe about them."
Watch the preview of HIV: Hey, It's Viral on Vimeo.
Tonic - May 8, 2009. link
8. Dannette Hoarde -- Speaking for the Silent Majority
The plight of incarcerated women is more or less off the mainstream grid. They make up only a small part of the prison population, but their numbers are growing steadily, and the challenges they face are singular to those of their male counterparts. While the media highlights women who kill their children or commit other violent crimes, this is a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the female prison population. The primarily non-violent majority is "invisible and voiceless." Driven by her own experience and triumph as a formerly incarcerated woman, Dannette Hoarde works tirelessly on behalf of the disenfranchised group. "I hope to be an inspirational role model, helping women obtain employable skills, connect with other formerly incarcerated women and achieve their dreams," says Dannette. The Chicago-native helped carry the stories of others with her contributions to "What We Leave Behind." The documentary challenges the stereotypes of women and prison and explores the effects of incarceration on the family. Hoarde is also the program manager for "Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance", an online community and forum dedicated to addressing the specific needs of women prisoners and their families. The exchange of shared stories supports women integrating back into society as well as keeping the women still "on the inside" connected and educated. Through her outreach, Dannette discovered a dire need for computer literacy among women in and out of prison system, and began hosting in-person seminars. Last year her efforts were recognized by a grant from the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund. There are countless stories to be told. And if we're all in fact connected, it may be well worth seeking out the quiet ones, they might know something we need to hear.
CNN - May 7, 2009. link
Stephanie Chen recently published an article on the CNN website telling the story of Wanda Taylor and her daughter, Donnie Belcher. Donnie and her mother's stories are published on Beyondmedia's Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance website.
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AREA Chicago - November 18, 2008. link
Also published in "A Guide to Democracy in America" edited by Nato Thompson (Creative Time Books)
"5 Questions About Art in Chicago" originated out of the Chicago portion of the Town Hall Talks organized by Daniel Tucker and Nato Thompson as part of Creative Time's Democracy In America project, in which 20 artists from a selected city were asked 5 questions about their work in a group interview. After that project was completed AREA Chicago took the transcripts and invited 20 more Chicago-based artists and cultural organizers to contribute to the interview project. Beyondmedia's executive director, Salome Chasnoff, was part of the project.
Given that the ways we make money impacts the type of culture we produce, how does the local economy effect your art practice? How do you work to obtain and share resources?
SALOME CHASNOFF: We partner with community-based groups and social change initiatives that lack media capacity. They lack the tools and the skills to make media on their issue, as well as find a forum for the media work. Part of our concern, then, is very practical; one of the key questions we ask when we're collaborating on what to make is how we're going to use what we make. So our primary audience is the affected community of the project that we're putting together. We share resources by collaborating on a piece; we each bring different skills and resources to the project. One of the things that we've found is that the media representation, or the media frame, gives tremendous authority to the message. So not only is having a documentary sometimes a more forceful way of communicating in certain settings than just face-to-face, but also, when we're working with groups and they do street interviews, standing there with a camera and a microphone could allow somebody to engage in a conversation in a way that just walking up to them on a street or on the bus wouldn't.
A couple of years ago, we worked with a group of women in street-level sex work organization called Prostitution Alternatives Roundtable for about a year. We made a documentary because they were trying to get several bills through the legislature in Springfield. After the making of the documentary, they showed it to legislators and all kinds of other influential audiences and managed to get three bills passed through Springfield with the help of these screenings and discussions. They have also been able to educate public audiences who,in many cases, didn't even know to have an interest in this issue because the people had no idea about the conditions and the various issues surrounding the lives of people involved. So this group of women was really successful in educating diverse audiences with their documentary as well as with face-to-face dialogue.
Describe a local cultural event that productively expanded the social networks that your practice operates in. That is to say, the event produced a new sense of community that had political potential.
We started working around the issues of the incarceration of women and its impact on families in the mid-'90s. We did a series of tapes with formerly incarcerated women in the middle to late '90s. One that was released in 2001 was screened all over [the country]. Out of that grew this installation that we created with 17 different community groups. We also worked with a number of students at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute. As I briefly mentioned before, the project was called 30 Days of Art and Education on Women's Incarceration. First of all, the process of making it was extremely collaborative and really created all these networks and relationships that hadn't existed before. The project toured 5 sites in thirty days in Chicago, very diverse sites: a gallery, a church, a university, and so on. The installation was multimedia; it represented women's stories on video and audio, interviews with their children, written works, and in a later form there was art by women who were incarcerated. Women in prison from around the country sent us arts and crafts that we sold at the exhibition and then sent the money back to them or deposited it in their accounts. After the first year, the installation continued to tour as Voices in Time, Lives in Limbo. Each location had a live performance by formerly incarcerated women and a "town hall" discussion on the issues with the audience. We also often had a panel with different activists, scholars, and former prisoners; many times one person was in all three of those roles. [The panels] looked at different issues surrounding the prison industrial complex and how it affects women. At each event not only did the relationships grow and multiply, but so did the documents: the documented evidence, the stories, the videos, the art objects, all multiplied. Finally, we started putting them on this website [www.womenandprison.org]. That's the idea of it -- it just continues to grow.
As a politically engaged artist or organization, how do you and/or your practice relate to existing social movements?
Because we collaborate with other groups, very often our practice is supporting our partners' issues. That could mean we are providing materials, events, venues for the girls' movement, the disability activism movement, queer youth organizing, and on and on. We're very involved in the media justice or media democracy movement as well. Our process has always been informed by a vision of social justice and collaborative process, which informs not only the politics but also the aesthetics of the work we create. And obviously, the economy informs that as well. But it's primarily our sense of media justice. We're always working to understand how the voice of communication could be represented as shared, which is in fact how narrative agency in reality is shared. We don't have our own isolated, individual thoughts and ideas and brainstorms; they're always part of a much larger process of mind sharing and feeling sharing and life sharing. That said, a recent string of events has gotten us into this national media justice movement. We got involved in this struggle with WTTW [Channel 11, one of the three PBS member stations in Chicago] because of their refusal to air one of our documentaries because they felt the subject was inappropriate. That got us involved with other media organizations locally, and we started organizing meetings and setting up a listserv. There have been a series of moves by corporate media happening here in Chicago that have led to independent and community voices being shut out. It's caused us to get involved in more national movements, and we're trying to develop a local or a collective voice that could represent Chicago on a national stage. And I think we'll just move on from there.
On The Issues Magazine - December 29, 2008. link
When TOMS Attack is the name of a short video created by Global Girls in Chicago to describe the problem of sexual harassment and assault by mature men who prey on young girls. The males are the "TOMS" of the title, which stands for "Thirsty Old Men" who terrorize girls by following them in cars and on the street, attempting to pick them up. One visual in the film says: "These nasty creeps try to get me in the sheets ? In reality they know I'm just a child, but in their sick fantasy, I'm a piece of meat."
The video was made in conjunction with Chain of Change, a Chicago-based project that works with youth to end gender-based violence through media and activism. Chain of Change, in turn, is the creation of the Chicago nonprofit, Beyondmedia Education, a group that harnesses the media as a social-justice organizing tool for women and youth.
Since its inception in the fall of 2007, Chain of Change has worked with over 20 youth organizations to create their own videos addressing gender-based violence. With pre-production discussions and production guidance, the youth plan and create the videos themselves. Once completed, the videos are posted online to inform and educate others about youth perspectives.
The completed videos touch upon topics of street violence, domestic abuse, online predators, sexual harassment against people with disabilities and more.
In one video, young men and women, interviewed about what they think causes men to act violently against women, describe insecurity, cowardliness and physical advantage. Youth from the Center on Halsted, Chicago's LGBT community center, joined with the Chain of Change project to look at violence against members of the transgender community.
A video by a youth group, Kids Off the Block, presents an honest discussion about unspoken rules that can affect how young men react when confronted with a domestic violence situation. According to the "rules," young men should not intervene in a violent situation if it involves family members or if the female is the aggressor. The one "rule" identified that allows a young man to intervene is if the violence occurs in public with individuals they do not know.
Another video created by an all-girls youth group addresses why and how girls bully each other, examining girls as both aggressors and survivors of violence. The film demonstrates examples of girl-on-girl violence and describes methods of mediating conflict.
At a forum about the video in August 2008, one girl shared her experiences with bullying. She said:
They were picking on me because I was in a chair and I was different from them. So from the 3rd grade to the 6th grade, they picked on me, took my book bag, emptied it out, called me names -- stuff like "cripple." And one girl even took it as far as to push my chair over and even took the wheel off. I think I could have prevented it from going any farther if I had told my teachers or even went to the principal. But I was afraid to go because they told me if I did, it would be worse the next time. So I just never told anybody. One day the principal was walking around the school like they always do, and I was getting my books out my locker when this one girl pushed my hand into the locker. I went into the principal?s office and then she asked had that ever happened before, and I had to tell her because she asked. I think if I had just told from the beginning, it could have gotten better instead of worse.
The forum where the girl spoke was part of a Youth Media Summit, a follow-up program in which all of the Chain of Change video groups shared their films with each other and joined in workshops about creative ways to enhance social justice causes through the use of photography, radio, spoken word and zine-making. Next year, the forum will go national, part of an effort to help youth around the country better understand the implications of gender-based violence and assert leadership in their communities.
4:05 minutes, 1.9 Mb
Host: Richard Steele, Chicago Public Radio - September 8, 2008. link
As Chicago's African American community uses creative ways to spread the message of AIDS Prevention, another group has teamed up for a new video targeting young people. HIV: Hey It's Viral was produced by the group Beyondmedia Education. It features young people living with HIV, and straight forward information about HIV and AIDS.
The video premieres this Wednesday at the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at Center on Halsted in Chicago.
And for yet another take on HIV awareness, you can head over to Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where this week local high school students will visually represent the way AIDS grows in Africa. Students at Glenbard West, Glenbard South, Wheaton North and Wheaton-Warrenville South are wearing bright orange T-shirts that read "Orphan." At the end of each day, each student will give away 4 more t-shirts to show how a whole African community can be affected by HIV and AIDS. The last day of the event includes a multi-media exhibition hosted by the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn and put together by the Christian humanitarian group, World Vision.
18:47 minutes, 17.2 Mb
Host: Tiffany Chong, Stark Raven Media Collective - July 3, 2008. link
Stark Raven takes a critical look at incarceration and criminalization in Canada and around the world. Hear in-depth analysis of the criminal justice system that goes beyond the corporate media. Produced by the Stark Raven Media Collective in Vancouver, BC. More info, prison news & resources www.prisonjustice.ca.
The number of women in prison is rising at an alarming rate.
Through videos, poetry, interviews, comics and other forms of expression Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance share women's stories of being in prison and surviving the criminal justice system.
The women involved with the site are hoping that these stories and experiences will help challenge this system that is putting more and more women behind bars.
The site is a project of Beyondmedia Education, an organization that uses media arts to voice the stories of under-represented women and girls. Stark Raven speaks with Joanne Archibald from Beyondmedia Education about the site, the process and the importance having women share their stories.
By: Ingrid Hu Dahl - June 16, 2008. link
Growing up queer in a hetero-normative society is complicated, risky and tricky to navigate. More than a quarter of queer youth have dropped out of school, and a third have attempted suicide in the previous year, citing harassment as a reason. Twenty to forty percent of queer youth account for young people without homes—often because their families find fault with their sexuality (Wright, Colorlines).
For many queer youth (an inclusive term for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Intersexed, and Questioning individuals), looking or “acting gay” is fraught with dangerous social ramifications. The process of coming out and “becoming” queer is difficult to explore. As a result, it is sometimes safer to stay in the closet. Unlike their peers of color, queer youth are less likely to have a queer parent or family member to go to when oppressive comments take their toll. In general, queer youth have a difficult time finding the support of adults, family members, and peers because they risk abandonment, rejection, and abuse in “coming out.” Finally, many of the existing LGBT centers and queer social spaces predominantly cater to adults 21 and over.
Fortunately, queer youth are able to find support and community at youth media programs because they encourage young people to tell their stories and share their perspectives. For many queer young people, youth media programs allow for a confessional “coming out” as they build community in a safe and supportive environment—often alongside non-queer peers. Learning from queer youth experiences at these organizations, practitioners can get a better sense of how and why they should support queer youth media.
A Space of Becoming & Belonging
In almost a dozen interviews, almost every queer young person at youth media organizations remarked on the unique, close-knit community among queer peers and mentors. The prominence of this theme suggests queer youth require and value a safe space to confess their coming out story, explore and express identity, and essentially “become” queer within themselves, their homes, and communities.
“Becoming” is a term used by Lori MacIntosh and Mary Bryson two professors at the University of British Columbia, in their article “Youth, MySpace, and the Interstitial Spaces of Becoming and Belonging,” in the Journal of LGBT Youth. In their article, they identify how social networking sites like MySpace have become “everyday locations of engagement…changing the way [queer youth] are made visible [and are] recognized.” Establishing one’s identity as queer in a public space is essential to “becoming.” To that end, youth media programs are similar to virtual social networking sites and, arguably, better since they provide a physical space for becoming that youth desperately need in their lives.
For example, Daniel, an 18-year-old queer Puerto Rican-raised-Muslim, dropped out of school in 9th grade because he felt constantly harassed by peers and adults. Fortunately, together with six of his peers, he co-founded SupaFriends at Global Action Project in New York City and became part of a family of queer youth (and supportive adults) who shared their coming out stories by creating video pieces with a social justice component. Daniel (aka Gaydussa) explains, “SupaFriends helped me feel comfortable and safe enough to come out to my parents. To feel safe—not be judged, have fun, work together, lead and inform—[and] have a visible and visual coming out story is important.”
Importantly, youth media programs also allow queer youth to control how they define and express their identity. Jeff McHale, creative director of Split Pillow—a non-profit motion picture and media literacy education company in Chicago, IL—states, “Creating art, whether it be film, theater, music or fine arts can be a therapeutic [process] for many queer youth.” He continues, “Giving them the opportunity to create their own [media] allows them to make the kind of [queer representation] that they wish [and] want to see.” Through youth media, queer youth can be part of a more positive, visible and recognized representation of queer identity and culture.
By claiming a queer identity and then collectively representing it, queer youth can accomplish what MacIntosh and Bryson identify as the next stage in development: “belonging.” Belonging occurs when a public community develops and becomes “the space of movement.” By screening films, airing radio shows, or recording songs, queer youth media achieves that space by reaching a public audience. Often, this audience is interactive, inciting community and belonging. For many queer youth, this opportunity to be recognized is life changing.
Social & Political Impact
Through youth media programs, queer youth are finding the space not only to look inward but to create media that questions societal norms, challenge oppressive outlooks, and inspire a change in perspective. For many queer youth, this is their one shot at getting a message out. By working with other young people, queer youth discover inventive and collaborative ways to interact with and affect their audience’s perspective.
Queer youth produce media that serve as models for how to combat homophobia and stereotypes in powerful, sometimes playful, and, most importantly, effective ways. Most, if not all, queer youth media are tailored to both queer and straight audiences, broadening dialogue across difference. Professor Mary Gray, who focuses on youth media at Indiana University, suggests, “Queer youth challenge mainstream media, [demonstrating] that they are politically savvy and already at the forefront of community activism [with] a host of other young people. They aren't just concerned with their identities—although they are certainly important—they're also concerned with what's happening in the world.”
In 2007, Daniel at SupaFriends and two other queer youth producers created an animation called Three Queer Mice. Their piece was based on their approach to, and research of, nursery rhymes. Daniel and his co-conspirators imagined what it would be like to have grown up hearing queer tales. So, they changed the words in the rhyme, revealing the stories of three queer “mice”—a gay mouse that leaves school “because his gender expression was in disregard,” a transgender mouse that gets arrested for using the “wrong” bathroom, and a mouse representing Sakia Gunn, who was stabbed and murdered in 2003 for being a lesbian.
After screening the film at Urban Visionaries Youth Film Festival, a straight peer came up to congratulate Daniel on what he felt was a “really good, clever, and eye opening” film. This conversation meant a lot to Daniel, as it not only proved the film did its job but also connected him to a seemingly impossible audience to reach. As a result, Daniel believes that youth media is part of social change. He explains, “If you’re queer and making media and you have a certain issue you want to approach using media—that is social justice.”
Liza Brice, a young woman who has interned at various queer radio programs explains, “[Young people] need spaces to be involved [in] transformative change to undo oppressive pressure and in doing so, produce something liberating.” In Seattle, WA, three young producers at Reel Grrls worked to create a liberating and humorous approach to homophobia and stereotypes in the mainstream. The team of queer and straight young women wanted to encourage audiences to examine prejudices in a non-threatening manner by asking the question, “What would it be like to live as a straight person in a gay world?”
Dedicated to “all those still in the closet,” Coming Out… is a mockumentary video the team produced that illuminates the impact of heterosexism and homophobia on the identities of queer youth in a strategically welcoming manner. The film serves as an important example of the approaches queer and non-queer come up with when they work together to address a social issue.
Recognizing the power of the film, practitioners at Reel Grrls pushed beyond the typical extent of a youth media video program so that the producers could engage with youth audiences at schools. Wanting the producers to be part of distribution, they identified ways to support and gain funding, inviting the producers to create an accompanying distribution guide—which one of the producers co-taught—to several middle schools, high schools, and universities (See Lila Kitaeff’s accompanying article). Their anti-homophobic curriculum alongside screening Coming Out… provided important insights as to what collectively queer youth and their families and friends experience in the “coming out” process and how to address homophobia.
If it weren’t for youth media providing an opportunity to make media in such a specific space, queer youth may never have access to a public audience (that includes family and friends). Queer youth need an audience to receive their messages, witness their stories, and see that they, too, belong. Like in Daniel’s case, Global Action Project provided the type of public screening that could make Three Queer Mice accessible to a straight peer. Because these instances are rare—partly due to mainstream media, peer pressure, conformity, cliques at school and fear of rejection or violence for being queer—queer youth benefit immensely from youth media programs.
What Practitioners Can Do
Catering to queer youth requires a lot of care, focus, time, and on-going support. Queer youth need a lot of attention and room to take the lead. The formula for a successful educator relies on a delicate mix of personality, style, empathy and dedication. Almost every queer young person interviewed mentioned a practitioner at his or her organization who really made him or her feel supported, who listened, and who allowed for a space to say whatever he or she wanted. The practitioners that made the most impact were extremely available and understanding. They backed up queer youth, joined forces in their struggles and hopes, and believed in their ability to make a difference. But most importantly, the instructor did not judge them. Finding the right practitioner to cater to queer youth requires professional development and training, resource and time allocation, dialogue, and a compassionate listener.
Practitioners should keep in mind that outside of youth media organizations, it is often not easy to identify queerness or allies. Rejection, violence and other exclusionary social reactions to queer sexuality keep many youth from openly discussing sexual orientation. For non-queer youth subject to oppression, the likelihood that they can turn to an understanding and empathic parent or adult is much higher than that of a queer youth who, unfortunately, risks the same social rejection within their own families. As Zaida Sanabia, a youth producer at Beyondmedia in Chicago, IL explains, “Without [adult allies] it would take a lot of courage for a young person to bring up queer issues [and represent that in media].”
The beauty of youth media organizations is that queer youth can be supported while engaging with other young people expressing their stories. As youth producer Ana Lopez at REACH LA reflects, “We are so different, but we’ve all had similar struggles in finding ourselves.” Lopez’s claim that all young people have had struggles provides the necessary backdrop for queer youth to unite common experiences that, ultimately, bridge the homophobic divide.
With the help of facilitators, young people can engage in conversations not commonly found in every day discourse that positively examine the intersections of race, gender, class and sexuality. Kali Snowden, one of the producers (and main character) of Coming Out… explains, “Oftentimes we create a lot of negative energy by talking about racism, sexism, and homophobia.” She continues, “[We need to] be more light-hearted, all inclusive, and recognize we all take part in oppression.”
McCarter at Split Pillow suggests that practitioners “Have everyone sit around and talk about issues [which] reinforce the fact that queer and straight youth have more in common than they sometimes think.” Professor Gray explains, “conversations about queerness among non-queer youth [are] incredibly valuable. Getting all young people to look at their attitudes about sexual and gender difference gives them a chance to see how they are both different from but not that unlike their queer peers.”
Practitioners can also learn from the few organizations that have queer-specific programming, such as Reel Grrls in Seattle, WA; Beyondmedia, Radio Arte, and Split Pillow in Chicago, IL; Global Action Project in New York, NY; and REACH LA in Los Angeles, CA. And in the U.K., there’s Queer Youth Radio.
Gina Lamb at REACH LA suggests the following to practitioners working with queer youth:
• Set serious group-decided ground rules. Identify space that is positive, safe, and away from outside drama.
• Do not tolerate oppressive comments. It is the responsibility of the group to call out discriminatory language.
• Everyone has participatory buy in (think the film The Breakfast Club) and can be vulnerable to each other.
• Facilitators must be ready and prepared to deal with tough topics, which will require resources and collaborative teaching.
• Reach out to other programs for training.
• Be a supportive and accepting adult ally, advocate and role model to queer youth, knowing that many do not have access to such adults.
Next Steps
Youth media is one of the best tools to support queer youth to build a positive identity because the focus of programs often encourages youth to claim and represent their identities despite harmful stereotypes projected by mainstream media. By providing a space to process becoming and belonging, youth media affords queer youth to finally amplify their stories and share their points of view among a community. Steven Liang, a teen activist in L.A. explains, “[Our stories] really foreshadow what could become amazing change in the future. If [queer] youth don’t tell their stories and document who they are and where they’ve been, then there won’t be much to look back on in the future.”
But their stories, in fact, radically affect the future. As Professor Gray explains, “[The] most revolutionary use of new media by queer youth is to connect with and circulate the range of stories and disseminate political strategies via new media.” These dialogues have the potential to build coalitions, partnerships between youth media and national LGBT organizations/Gay-Straight Alliances, and tap into major youth-led anti-hate movements—echoing the grassroots foundation of the youth media movement in history. Youth media educators who believe in supporting young people need to make a concerted effort to empower queer youth. With the support of youth media programs, queer youth can create media that confronts stereotype and bias in their own lives and in the greater society.
Ingrid Hu Dahl is the editor of Youth Media Reporter and a founding member of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in Brooklyn, New York. She has an M.A. in Women's & Gender Studies and is the guitarist in the band Boyskout.
By: Bari Faye Siegel, Tri-Town News - February 28, 2008. link
JACKSON - People with disabilities want one thing more than anything else in the world: they want others to see them as people who live, learn, laugh and love - like everybody else in the world. They dream of a world where everyone is able to see that they are so much more than their disabilities.
Filmmaker Susan Nussbaum brought that dream to life in the film "Beyond Disability: The Fe Fe Stories." The film, which runs about 30 minutes, depicts a group of girls who refuse to be defined by what others seem to think holds them back.
A showing of the film and a rousing discussion on the topic is set for March 8 at 1 p.m. at the Jackson Branch of the Ocean County Library, 2 Jackson Drive. Seating is limited and registration is requested. Contact senior librarian Meagan Toohey with questions or accommodation requests, as well as to register to attend, by calling (732) 928-4400, ext. 5, or by sending an e-mail to mtoohey@theoceancountylibrary. org.
The program is sponsored byAllies Inc. and the New Jersey Coalition on Women and Disabilities (NJCWD). The film, which won the Spirit Award at the Superfest International Disability Film Festival, is closed-captioned. Additionally, interpreters will be present at the March 8 showing. Refreshments will be served.
"Beyond Disability: The Fe Fe Stories" is about a group of young women with disabilities who call themselves the Empowered Fe Fes (slang for female.) The group hits the streets of Chicago on a quest to discover the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them. Their revelations are humorous, thought provoking and surprising. The young women grapple with issues as diverse as access, education, employment, sexuality and growing up with disabilities.
Filmmaker Nussbaum started the Empowered Fe Fes in 1999 and made the film in 2004. The Fe Fes are a part of a youth program at Access Living, a disability rights organization in Chicago.
"These girls did not want to be depicted as pathetic or saintly or any of the other paternalistic portrayals of disabled people put out there by the dominant culture," Nussbaum said.
That's when the Fe Fes learned how to work their own sound and camera equipment - thanks to Beyondmedia.
Toohey has seen the film and was so moved that she felt compelled to share it with others.
"The film is very positive, and girls who made the film in high school talked about their experiences, the challenges they faced, their hopes and dreams. I thought it was very humorous and I knew it would get a good dialogue going between those with disabilities and without," she said.
After watching the film, attendees will have an opportunity to discuss the issues, talk with students with disabilities and learn from local organizations that empower people with disabilities. Invited guests include Brick Township resident Jeanine Niemira from the NJCWD, Ms. Wheelchair New Jersey 2007 Kelly Rouba, and Kelly A. Matula, a Princeton University student and NJCWD scholarship winner.
Physically, Niemira is wheelchairbound.
Emotionally, spiritually, intellectually … nothing can keep her down. She was born prematurely, resulting in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. She graduated from Monmouth University, West Long Branch, with bachelor's and master's degrees in social work. In her presentation onMarch 8, she will show it is possible for disabled people to lead fulfilling lives with a healthy dose of "patience, planning and laughter."
"It is important to make the general public aware of concerns facing the disabled population, because as we get older we all face some form of disability. Unfortunately, for those of us who are permanently disabled, the process of gaining access and equality has been a long, difficult one. If we all work together these changes will come in a more timely manner and this will benefit all community members in the future," Niemira said.
Toohey hopes that many people - those who are disabled and those who want to be enlightened by the message - will come out onMarch 8 and see the film.
"Sometimes you can tell someone is disabled and sometimes you can't. A disability might be invisible to the naked eye," she said. "People are afraid to approach people. We want to share the idea that you shouldn't make assumptions about people. It might take more time to figure out how to interact with someone with a disability, but it will always be worth the time."
By: Ingrid Hu Dahl, Youth Media Reporter - February 14, 2008. link
Beyondmedia Education is a Chicago-based 501c3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to collaborate with under-served and under-represented women, youth and communities to tell their stories, connect their stories to the world around us, and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts.
Recently, Chicago Public Television station WTTW’s Image Union refused to air Beyondmedia Education’s award-winning documentary Turning a Corner, claiming that the content is inappropriate. As part of the award, Turning a Corner was to be screened on WTTW’s Image Union program. Created in a media activism workshop with members of Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART)—15 women who had been street-level sex workers in Chicago—the film recounts their battles with homelessness, violence and discrimination and provides insight into Chicago’s sex industry. Beyondmedia Education recently won the Chicago Reporter’s John A. McDermott Documentary (short) Film Competition for Turning a Corner. WTTW’s refusal to air the program cites the sensitive subject matter—sex workers in Chicago—as the reason for their decision.
In response, and due to other recent events that have challenged access to free press in Chicago (including Loyola’s takeover of WLUW and the buyout of the Chicago Reader and the firing of key writers) on January 17th Beyondmedia Education organized a meeting at Columbia College for community and independent media makers to come together to build a media justice plan for action addressing issues of censorship, inequality in media access, and the increasing corporate control of media in Chicago.
In January, YMR interviewed Salome Chasnoff, Executive Director of Beyondmedia.
YMR: In your own words, please discuss the important issue of community access to public media as it relates to the youth media field.
Chasnoff: It’s to recognize the reality that young people are part of our world. We are all in this together. We all need to communicate in the same space. Adults are very quick to complain that young people don’t communicate with them—that there is an invisible divide between the generations both in the public and private spheres. For example, “I don’t understand their music, dress, etc.” Media—public communication—is a way for these divides to be bridged and the public forum to be rebuilt.
In some ways, media reflects what is happening on the ground and in some ways it constructs what is happening. We can see the public and private as co-creative. Through media making we can repair the social fabric. Youth media is key to that enterprise. Technology is the means but the end result is larger. Youth are going to run the world and they are the vibrant voice of today. That has to be reflected in everything—including public access—and adults need to be accountable to young people. The only way to do that is to hear them. But young people also need to take responsibility for speaking and participating—and fight for the space in which to do it. If youth have something to say in the public space and that access is blocked—that is censorship.
YMR: About 30 people attended the media justice meeting you organized at Columbia College. What was the overall outcome?
Chasnoff: There were all kinds of groups that attended the meeting. Beyondmedia works with many different cohorts. Attendees included policy makers, media makers, academics, and youth media. Unless we are trying to develop an initiative, it is normally difficult to get these groups together. Everyone is so busy. People need to have a particular, shared objective.
In the break-out groups, there was a concern for university accountability (journalism/media programs). Students are being trained for jobs that do not exist—therefore, universities must share resources and be transparent in their programs.
People want to continue meeting and bring in more groups and definitely more young people (for youth voice). We are developing a listserv and the next meeting will be at Southwest Youth Collaborative in order to change the context of each meeting to reflect the diversity of voices. We are committed to win-able battles.
At the meeting, we talked about a live weekly forum where people could express their views on a particular issue (a hot issue) that could be broadcast locally. This would work well for young people and all different marginalized groups. Parents are complaining that they do not know what their teens are thinking. Youth can speak through media and adults can learn a lot from that.
YMR: How can educators, media justice organizers, community members and young people collaborate and support each other in doing this type of work?
Chasnoff: An important thing is to remember that we are all involved in the same project. What we do is about all of us. We don’t have to actively collaborate to keep each other’s best interests in mind. If what we are creating is for everyone, than we are collaborating. We have to remember to keep our blinders off and always expand our vision so it includes more and more issues, people, and audiences. If we are acting out of a social justice model, than ultimately, what we do will serve the greatest good.
YMR: What role can independent and community media play in accessing young people within public media?
Chasnoff: This is already happening. I’ve been a media maker for twenty years and I have seen youth media grow from something non-existent to a viable field. Part of that is the way technology has grown—young people have more access to media tools and knowledge. Public media must create a space of access for marginalized voices.
For example, independent/community media must have opportunities for young people to become involved and expand their frame as a result of talking to young people. Youth must learn how to engage media with solving issues or problems that concerns them.
YMR: One specific question at the meeting was “what kind of a job is Chicago public media doing in representing the public interest”? How does this relate to youth media?
Chasnoff: I think people would find youth media (and marginalized voice/media) interesting in Chicago. The Chicago public likes to be challenged and entertained. Many want to be active, critical viewers. The work we make here in Beyondmedia is not entertainment based and yet we get a lot of positive responses from a diverse array of people.
Rarely has my breath been taken away by mainstream media. But when someone is taking public space for the first time after making their story their entire lives, it is totally unique, fresh and surprising. It has the capacity to capture people’s imaginations and they can learn from that. It is not a story that is made to sell a product. It is a story that is expressing lived experience and, therefore, something most people can relate to, recognizing the truth in storytelling. The problem with a lot of university filmmaking programs is that state-of-the-art equipment is available to learn on but you might as well watch the products on mute—they are boring. The focus is warped in my opinion. Young people that really want to grab the power of these tools in their hands and use them to express their unique vision and get something that would make their world better—that is exciting.
YMR: What strategies can youth media educators use to access public media more effectively and consistently?
Chasnoff: Develop relationships with gatekeepers of public media and educate them to what youth media could bring to them and their audiences. Try to work creatively together. Develop programming that would allow youth to “see” behind the scenes how public media is made (and even develop roles for them such as internships and/or career paths). Work with public media such as NPR, PBS and even universities to develop resources. If taxpayers support and “own” these outlets, then they should reflect our vision. Young people and adults must fight to own public voice. We can’t take our ownership for granted—we have to fight for it on a daily basis. The relationship between public media and free speech/democracy is indivisible because you can’t have one without the other.
For example, as a result of the response from our colleagues and peers, Beyondmedia did win a battle. It’s not official yet but, despite the set back with WTTW’s Image Union, it looks like our full documentary will be aired on WTTW’s regular programming in the spring in an even better time slot and not just the initial short version proposed to air. This proves that there are win-able battles out there when you mobilize your troops in the field and beyond.
Dannette Hoarde Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
Avon Foundation - February 12, 2008. link
Dannette Hoarde was named this week’s winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, a weekly $5,000 award program from Avon Products, Inc. to support the empowerment of women. Dannette’s award will help fund Beyondmedia’s computer literacy workshops for formerly incarcerated women, integrated with their project website, Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance.
A recent poll showed the number of women in Illinois state prisons was 2,520 – a 173% increase in ten years. Additionally, more than 60% of the women entering prison have not attained a high school diploma. Post incarceration, women often return to their communities with few, if any, marketable job skills, yet they are often responsible for their children as well as themselves. With little sense of community or support, they are often become isolated and have minimal exposure to successful role models. As a formerly incarcerated woman herself, Dannette understands this problem firsthand.
Dannette manages womenandprison.org, a project of Beyondmedia Education, a non-profit that collaborates with under-served and under-represented women to tell their stories and organize for social justice through alternative media and arts. Dannette was also a participant in the the workshop that produced “What We Leave Behind,” a short documentary in which women former prisoners presented the issues of women in prison and its impact on their children.
Dannette’s outreach on behalf of the Web site extends to current and formerly incarcerated women, as she encourages them to share their stories and engage with the online community. This online exchange is a way for women to learn from one another as they create lives for themselves after prison, and it helps women “on the inside” stay updated on legislation and feel supported. In addition to serving women and their families, womenandprison.org has also become a unique resource for scholars, educators and policy makers. To extend its impact, Dannette began conducting outreach to organizations that work with post-incarcerated women, and discovered that many of these organizations lack computer equipment and resources, therefore excluding women access to this powerful support system. The award will support the purchase of laptops to expand access to formerly incarcerated women and equip them to submit their oral histories to this unique archive.
Thanks to her Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund award, Dannette will be able to reach an estimated 500 women this year by conducting two to four workshops per month in Chicago, serving women of all ages and backgrounds with training in computer literacy skills. “I hope to be an inspirational role model, helping women obtain employable skills, connect with other formerly incarcerated women and have dreams,” says Dannette. The award will fund the purchase of two laptop computers, curriculum materials, professional development courses and software, and cover transportation, advertising and communication costs.
Beyondmedia’s winning was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including Suze Orman, America’s most recognized expert on personal finance. Dannette is one of thirteen weekly winners to be selected from more than 900 applicants from across the U.S.
Good Intentions
The Chicago Reporter held a documentary contest. Not even the winner’s happy.
By Michael Miner - The Chicago Reader - December 6, 2007. link
Do you believe art drives social change? Venita Griffin does, and as director of marking and communications for the Community Renewal Society, she found herself in a position to act on this belief. CRS publishes the Chicago Reporter, which this year sponsored the first ever John A. McDermott Documentary Film Competition. It was her idea.
The good news is that Griffin and Alysia Tate, editor and publisher of the Reporter, say there will be a McDermott competition next year, and hopefully many more to come. The bad news is that the first time out, the competition ended in something of a shambles. The winners feel rooked because their film won’t be shown as expected on WTTW’s Image Union, and the producer of Image Union wishes his program weren’t getting blamed for breaking a promise he says it never made in the first place.
The late John McDermott founded the Reporter some 30 years ago to explore issues related to race and poverty that the mainstream press wasn’t paying enough attention to. More agenda driven today than it was when it simply laid out grim facts for a city that wasn’t eager to hear them, the Reporter put out a call last April for films that examined “racial and economic disparities.” This criterion would be loosely applied, and so would another, that the entries “should not exceed 15 minutes.”
The call for entries promised a public screening of the top three entries. Moreover, it said, “one winning entry will be aired during WTTW11 Chicago’s Image Union.”
On October 14 Beyondmedia Education, a production house that focuses on marginalized women, got an e-mail from Griffin that began, “Congratulations.” Turning a Corner, a Beyondmedia documentary on prostitution in Chicago, had won the McDermott. There’d be a screening and panel discussion October 19 at the Cultural Center and other screenings at “several venues” to be determined.
Associate director Joanne Archibald e-mailed back. “There was also a statement that one of the films would be chosen to be on Image Union. Is that Turning a Corner?” she asked. “Sorry for the confusion,” Griffin replied. “Turning a Corner is our main winner—so yes, you guys will be shown on Image Union. I will put you in touch with the Producers there.”
But Image Union producer Eddie Griffin had a different idea. “We were asked to be a judge and we were asked if we’d be willing to pick a film and put it on the air,” he says. “And that’s what we did.” They watched the DVD the Reporter sent them, which contained six films, and picked No Half Steppin, a 17-minute documentary on local rapper Sharkula, a dreamer who hustles his recordings on the street.
Six judges graded the six films according to such criteria as “Social justice issue tackled was clear and apparent” and “Film successfully communicates the challenges/special needs of a certain economic and/or racial or ethnic group.” Filmmakers Brendan Kredell and Tom Bailey do a nice job of capturing Sharkula’s charms and torments, but No Half Steppin doesn’t reflect those judging criteria, which probably helps explain its appeal to Image Union. (The anthology show likes work that’s “out there,” says Eddie Griffin’s predecessor, Annie Porter.)
“We’re the only winner that was ever announced,” says Salome Chasnoff, executive director of Beyondmedia and director of Turning a Corner. “It’s like they pulled the other one out of a hat.”
On October 26, Venita Griffin e-mailed Beyondmedia to let them know that an upcoming screening of Turning a Corner at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen had been canceled.
“Also,” she went on, “Image Union has decided to air the second place winner of the McDermott film fest on its show, saying it fit better with the theme of the episode they planned to show it on. I am truly sorry that Turning a Corner won’t be shown, but Image Union has final say on what show they will air.”
Second-place winner? “That’s what really grabbed our attention,” says Chasnoff, “because there had been no mention of a second-place winner or any place winner as far as we knew.” (Tom Bailey says he and Kredell found out from the Reporter “significantly later” than October 14 that their film was the runner-up and would be shown on Image Union.)
A conference call with Alysia Tate followed. According to the notes of the Beyondmedia participants, Tate said Image Union had turned down Turning a Corner because of the “sensitivity of the material.”
Tate and Griffin have apologized, and apologized again. “We do regret any miscommunication on our part,” they wrote in a November 19 letter to Beyondmedia. “At this time we feel it is most appropriate for you to speak directly with Image Union around your questions and concerns about why your film was not selected for airing.”
Eddie Griffin is new in his job. Venita Griffin originally negotiated WTTW’s role with his predecessor. But Annie Porter and Eddie Griffin both say Image Union would never have committed itself to the judges’ choice. “The jury selected Turning a Corner and we selected No Half Steppin,” Eddie Griffin told me. “We reserve the right to make our own decision.”
As Tate suggested, Archibald called Eddie Griffin. “I said, ‘What’s objectionable?’” she says. “And he said it was the subject matter, prostitution. ‘This isn’t HBO.’ And I said you can see more controversial material on prime time any day. There was no nudity. The way it was presented was not lurid or sensational. It’s real.”
HBO? “I’m not here to speak out against the film,” Griffin told me, declining to discuss his conversation with Archibald.
It’s not like the fate of Turning a Corner hinges on Image Union—a program that airs at the not-so-prime times of 10:30 PM Thursday and midnight Monday. What Beyondmedia entered in the McDermott competition was a 14-minute preview of a 53-minute film that premiered at the Northwestern University law school auditorium in February 2006 and has been screened frequently since. “Image Union is not that important to us,” says Chasnoff. “What was important to us was the false promise and the lack of information we were getting so we couldn’t figure out what was going on, and we felt it was wrong. When we started talking about it in the office and researching it we began to expose a lot of issues that concerned us, like the lack of access to public media and censorship.”
Censorship? Does she believe that’s what this is about? “I do, I do,” she says. “If public media isn’t a place where these women can have a platform for their message, that’s censorship. If they’re not considered part of the constituency for public media, that’s censorship to me. Look at it from our point of view. First of all, we were told the winner would get a screening on Image Union. We were told we were the winner. We were told we were top winner and we’d get a screening. All of a sudden we weren’t going to get a screening. What’s that about? It felt like censorship.”
In other words, Beyondmedia isn’t mad at the Reporter for meaning well but making some mistakes. It’s mad at WTTW for stiffing their film. Chasnoff made it clear to me that she likes the Reporter. She regularly reads the Reporter. Last year the Reporter ran a long interview with her on the making of Turning a Corner.
Chasnoff might want to get in touch with Barbara Allen and Dan Soles. Allen’s a WTTW producer who sat on a panel that talked about independent media and social change the night Turning a Corner was introduced as the winning film at the Cultural Center. She admired it. “I had to reevaluate what I thought about prostitution,” she says. “I’d never thought about it on that human level.” Soles is WTTW’s senior vice president of TV content. He told me about other locally created documentaries coming to WTTW, and he said that if Chasnoff and Archibald send him the full 53-minute version of Turning a Corner he’ll certainly consider it.
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Beyondmedia Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- December 6, 2007
Chicago, IL – Chicago Public Television station WTTW has refused to air Beyondmedia Education’s documentary Turning A Corner, claiming that the content is inappropriate. Beyondmedia Education recently won the Chicago Reporter’s John A. McDermott Documentary (short) Film Competition for Turning a Corner. As part of the award, Turning a Corner was to be screened on WTTW’s Image Union program. Their refusal to air the program cites the sensitive subject matter as the reason for their decision.
Turning a Corner is far from sensational, containing no nudity or language that violates FCC regulations. Rather, it tells the stories of people involved in the sex trade – through their own voices – and depicts their efforts to raise public awareness of systemic injustice and promote legislative reforms. Created in a media activism workshop with members of Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), 15 women who had been street-level sex workers in Chicago, the film recounts their battles with homelessness, violence and discrimination and provides insight into Chicago’s sex industry. The film has screened nationally and won a number of awards, including a Hometown Video Award from the national Alliance for Community Media and the Beloit International Film Festival’s Best Documentary Midwest.
Image Union has shown films that portray violence against women, including one fictional film in which a woman tricked her abusive husband into murdering her. Unfortunately, women who do not want to be abused or murdered have not received the same representation. Beyondmedia argues that WTTW’s refusal to screen Turning a Corner exposes the underlying issues of censorship and access to public media. WTTW features an entertainment-heavy, non-representative schedule of programs, yet claims in its mission to represent the issues of the “diverse audiences in Chicago and its communities.”
Beyondmedia Executive Director and the film’s director Salome Chasnoff stated, “This action by WTTW raises important questions. If community-licensed, publicly funded television isn’t a place where the women represented in Turning a Corner can have a platform for their message, who is it for? Who does have access to the media? How committed is our public media to representing all of our voices? WTTW’s action shows a lack of understanding of what censorship actually means. At Beyondmedia, we have always tried to draw attention to the pressing issues of media control and the silencing of voices.” Beyondmedia is urging concerned community members to contact WTTW and express their support for screening Turning a Corner.
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Did WTTW commit censorship or something less sinister?
By Michael Miner - Chicago Reader Blog - December 21st 2007 - link
"Censorship" is a fighting word. It's what WTTW was accused of in my December 6 column. Chasnoff's the executive director of Beyondmedia Education and the director of Turning a Corner, a 53-minute film on prostitution in Chicago that Beyondmedia completed in early 2006. My story was about a 14-minute version of Turning a Corner that this fall won a documentary competition sponsored by the Chicago Reporter yet wasn't given a screening on WTTW's Image Union as expected. Chasnoff thought a screening had been promised the winner and that WTTW reneged: "If public media isn't a place where these women can have a platform for their message, that's censorship," she told me. "If they're not considered part of the constituency for public media, that's censorship to me."
But neither the station nor Image Union had ever committed to airing the winning film in the Reporter competition -- IU simply agreed to select one of the entries and show it. What's more, WTTW's senior vice president of TV content, Dan Soles, told me that if Beyondmedia sent him the full 53-minute film, he'd watch it and consider it. That's the note on which I ended.
That note didn't satisfy Beyondmedia. It asserts on its Web site that "WTTW's refusal to screen Turning a Corner exposes the underlying issues of censorship and access to public media." It site urges friends of Beyondmedia to post comments on the Reader Web site after my column and to e-mail WTTW in protest. It even provides a letter to Soles that can be sent to WTTW with a couple of computer clicks. "Public media holds the responsibility of ensuring that all community members have a space for media representation," says this letter. "By censoring the voices of marginalized women, you undermine their ability to participate fully in our democracy. I hope that WTTW will take this event as an opportunity to live up to its mission and screen work that represents all of Chicago’s communities."
Some of Beyondmedia's friends have done what they were asked. These comments follow my column. "When you combine shameless lack of courage and programming cowardice you get censorship. Sadly, this is what we’ve come to expect from WTTW." "This is a very real story that shouldn't be censored just because it involves sex work." "WTTW, get over your puritanism and show something that matters to us." "To hear of this competition-turned-censorship-move isn't just disheartening, it's angering."
And here's an e-mail to the station that didn't simply repeat the boilerplate: "I, and many other Chicagoans, rely on public television and radio to be objective voices in a world full of censorship and spin -- I hope that WTTW has not fallen prey to these same things." A reply from WTTW's "Member and Viewer Services Department" said that "unfortunately, 'Turning a Corner' is not currently scheduled to air on WTTW 11 as our programming director has not been given the opportunity to review the program by its producers. We will gladly forward your request to our programming director, but the program will not be aired until it can be reviewed."
That's pretty much what Soles had told me. But when I called Chasnoff and asked if she'd sent Soles a copy of the full movie, she said, yes, she had, and then she told me something that neither she nor Soles had mentioned to me before. She'd also sent WTTW a copy in early 2006. She got a reply in May of 2006 from Sarah Warner, WTTW's "community partnerships and outreach assistant," who said "our programmer" (that would be Soles, Warner tells me) had some reservations but by and large found the film "very powerful and moving. . . . He would consider airing it, if it were shorter (half an hour)."
Chasnoff wrote back to say she'd be happy to edit a half-hour version of Around a Corner (ed. Turning A Corner) but first she wanted to find out what the programmer liked and didn't like. Warner replied, "I spoke with Dan and he would be happy to speak with you." But Chasnoff tells me that weeks later she still hadn't been able to reach Soles. Eventually she gave up on the idea of getting his feedback for a shorter version. "I felt I was spinning my wheels," she says.
So what doesn't quite feel to me like censorship does feel a lot like a runaround. Censorship's more flattering -- more flattering to Beyondmedia, certainly, but also to WTTW, which at least can be said to be acting with intent. "We get so many submissions I can't honestly recall seeing the film." Soles told me, estimating there were about 50 DVDs on his desk. I said there might be as many as two copies of Turning a Corner in the pile. "I'm glad she's resubmitted it," he said, "and I look forward to viewing it."
The number of women in prison is on the rise and yet they are often left out of discussions on issues directly affecting them.
In this episode of "Community Media & You", Thom Clark discusses these issues and how Media Arts is being used to include incarcerated and formally incarcerated women in debates that will shape their lives. The show's guests include, associate director of BeyondMedia, Joanne Archibald and project manager for womenandprison.org, Dannette Hoarde.
Last month, on June 27, 2007 early in the morning, I was on a bus on my way to Atlanta Georgia where the US Social Forum took place. Thanks to Girls Best Friend Foundation for giving me the opportunity to be part of the US Social Forum. It was a great experience, I learned a lot about many people. It was exciting for me to see different kinds of people that are working together on many different issues to make their communities safer and better . There were people from all over the world. I especially remember this guy from Columbia that was at one of the workshops. He talked about how the U.S is killing all the crops in their attempts to stop cocaine growing. They spray chemicals that kill all the plants, not just cocaine.
I participated on several workshops. At one, “Other Politics Is Possible,” a couple organizations, like Incite and the Garment Worker Center talked about the different ways that they organize, such as marches and rallies. The Garment Worker Center talked about the way they try to educate the workers, through workshops that they offer. I also watched a few films from the film festival. One of the films that I remember is ‘Salud!,” that talks about the health care in Cuba and how everyone in Cuba has health care. This has been in the news lately with Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” but Salud! focused entirely on Cuba to show the global need for universal healthcare. It’s not just a US problem.
Over all the US Social Forum was a great experience. The US Social Forum was an inspiration to continue my work. The energy that you can feel being around so many people that are working together on so many issues is just incredible.
OR VIDEO AND INSTALLATION ARTIST Salome Chasnoff, involvement in women’s issues was a matter of personal evolution. Feminism, as expressed through women’s arts and literature, spoke to her while studying performance in graduate school in the 1980s. Chasnoff adapted the work of female writers and artists for the stage, eventually implementing film and video in her performances and adding a new dimension to women’s progressive initiatives through media. With these skills, Chasnoff founded and became executive director of Beyondmedia Education. The Chicago-based nonprofit extends unconventional media access to diverse groups of women and girls, giving a compelling voice to women’s issues—incarceration, prostitution, the media’s representation of women, reproductive health, and more—through the subjects’ own voices. Chasnoff teaches marginalized women to express stories through media activism; in doing so, she changes their lives and the lives of others through poignant video documentation.
PLAYGIRL: How does Beyondmedia connect with women?
SALOME CHASNOFF: The media we produce emerges from authentic collaboration with women and girls. It’s not a media expert’s interpretation of people’s experiences; they are told through the voices of people themselves… A professional doesn’t come and sit with them for three hours, tape them, then go off and edit—it’s part of a whole process where we work with a group as a team and take them through the whole process of media production, from learning basic production skills to exploring issues together, to kind of growing together as a group and then producing this thing together and getting it out to the world.
What women’s sexual issues need attention the most ?
Reproductive health. We’re seeing rising HIV and AIDS infection, especially among young women, because of the government’s exclusive funding of abstinence-only programs and all the other ways it uses religion to what I feel violate women’s basic human rights. Another thing is media violence and how it normalizes actual violence against women.
Tell us about covering prostitution in the film Turning A Corner.
We worked with a group in Chicago called the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), a part of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. It’s an advocacy group for people exiting the streets and sex trade. It emerged out of a workshop I facilitated with 15 women who’d worked in street prostitution… One of the most powerful things we did was go around Chicago, where they told personal stories on the same streets where in the past they had traded sex.
Beyondmedia also addressed the plight of disabled women attempting to gain or regain their sex lives.
We did a fun and different kind of video called Doin’ It: Sex, Disability and Videotape. We took these young women with disabilities, The Empowered Fe Fes, and did a feminist sex shop and talked about masturbation… I think people who view sexuality as having sex only, and people who view sex for procreation only turn out to be, generally speaking, pretty frustrated.
[Laughs]
What has been the group’s greatest accomplishment?
We gave a voice to the most marginalized women and girls among us. It’s deeply affected the people who contributed to the making of the works and also to many who view them. We’ve also become a community for women artists and activists; we have so many people who hit our web site and say they’ve discovered an island in the middle of a harsh sea… They see our site and want to get involved.
February 2007
Feministing.com
by Celina De Leon
Salome Chasnoff is executive director of the alternative media nonprofit, Beyondmedia. Salome is a video and installation artist, media activist and educator, whose work is dedicated to expanding media access for marginalized communities. She has been an arts educator for the past 20 years in university and community settings, and an artist-activist in the prison moratorium movement for 8 years.
Beyondmedia, for the most part, works with young women between the ages of 13 and 25. They also partner with many women’s and queer youth groups.
Here’s Salome…
According to Beyondmedia’s mission statement, if underserved communities can document and communicate their stories and serve as educators to others, they can generate social transformation. Can you talk more about this, and give some examples from Beyondmedia’s work?
I think when other people tell our stories, they are necessarily doing so through the veil of their own biases, experiences and agendas. This can’t be helped. Marginalized communities are by definition invisible to or misrepresented by the corporate media. So, taking your own representation into your own hands gives you tremendous power. Sharing your story with those who are uninformed can open their eyes to your humanity.
It’s particularly true for people who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. For example, women who work in the sex trade industry. We did a documentary with women in the sex trade industry recently, “Turning a Corner.” We trained them to tell their stories and they lobbied legislators in Springfield [Illinois] around specific bills that were pending. Several of the legislators said that it was through hearing the women’s voices—hearing the women’s stories through their own voices—that their minds were changed, and their votes. The women ended up winning some major policy victories in Illinois because of that.
Also, people who are incarcerated are often out of sight and out of mind. We don’t know what goes on [in prison], so it’s very easy for us to carry all kinds of stereotypes about them. We have a website, Women in Prison: A Site for Resistance, and it has stories and interviews with women inside. They send us tales of their experiences which are first-person, detailed, and filled with truths that we don’t get exposed to, so they inform us differently.
We do workshops. We specialize in media production workshops which take people who have no previous experience with media making through the whole process from developing and learning basic media literacy and production skills, to learning how to focus on the issues that affect them and their communities from a politicized perspective, to developing a project and creating it as a team and taking it out to the world. The media that we produce at Beyondmedia emerges from authentic collaborations with women and girls. The stories that we represent are not a media expert's interpretation of people's experiences. They’re told in the voices of the people themselves. [The people] have control over how they’re being represented. The media speaks in a profound way to viewers. It can also be a life changing experience for the makers themselves because many have not had their stories heard, their realities recognized and valued. In this way, the making of media becomes the medium for community building, for healing, for social transformation.
From your work with young women, what issues do they often choose to work on or explore?
Sometimes they’re already exploring them. Sometimes they haven’t given it a thought. We have all kinds of collaborations and everyone is different. But pretty consistently, the issue of violence is often an issue; sexuality permeates all of the issues; and media representation, and how these are all connected and feed on each other. We become so used to living in a misogynistic society that the violence against women has become normalized. So, when the young women have the experience of taking the media into their own hands, it’s a way of talking back.
What are some projects Beyondmedia is working on now?
We’ve been working for the past four years with a group called The Empowered Fe Fes. It is a group of young women, primarily young women of color, who are disabled in a variety of ways. We’re showing one of the pieces that we made in a double feature. The main feature is called “Doin’ It: Sex, Disability, and Videotape.” It’s about letting the world know that young women with disabilities are sexual beings with sexual needs and sexual desires, and have a need for sex ed. They have the same dreams and hopes and ambitions that everybody does, and the same medical and educational needs.
The short tape is by young girls. It’s on bullying and how it has become a new topic, but somehow young people with disabilities, how they’re treated, is not seen as bullying. It’s a pretty virulent form of discrimination and has a big impact on their educational experience with long-range implications.
We have a women in prison program and two really powerful projects happening. One is Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance—it’s a website—which I mentioned earlier. It’s a collection of first-person oral histories of women in prison and formerly incarcerated women—articles, reports, journals, poetry, art, scholars and activists’ contributions, video, and audio. It’s a really unique place to hear the voices of women and girls affected by the prison system. We also recently got a grant to hire formerly incarcerated women to manage the site. We’re doing outreach to people in prison, and formerly incarcerated, to submit their stories. We’re providing workshops to show them how to use the site and how to contribute their stories. It’s a really powerful project. I’m really excited about it.
And then “Turning a Corner,” which I also mentioned earlier, which was made by women who were in street-level prostitution, that is in distribution in a lot of festivals. We’re doing screenings all over the country. Actually distribution of all our works is a major project that we’re strategically and intentionally expanding because it’s a great opportunity for universities to bring the voices of people [many students] are not ordinarily exposed to, into the classroom. Film festivals, cable, public television, we’re really trying to get the work out there.
One project that we’ve been working on for the past couple of years with LGBTQ youth is called “Can LGBTQ + School=Safe?” It’s a set of media organizing tools for queer youth in school settings. We’ve got the video and we’re working on the website. We are creating one guide for the students and another guide for teachers and adult facilitators. A lot of our projects have different components to make them complex tools.
For another project, we’re collaborating with two local organizations. One is Broadway Youth Center, which serves queer, transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning youth, many of whom are homeless; and About Face Youth Theater. We’re doing a project, HIV: History in Voices, which is a cultural history of HIV. It’s a long project; a documentary and a theater piece are going to come out of it.
What are your views on mainstream television? Do you recommend any shows to watch?
For me, mainstream TV, I use it for entertainment only. I think it’s really dumbed down, and interviewers don’t challenge their interviewees, even when they know they’re lying. For me, it’s a place to—when I’m tired—to crash, and do what everybody else does. I watch “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “Grey’s Anatomy.” I love “Roseanne” reruns. Sometimes, when I’ve been working really hard, I’ll stay up late and watch garbage. I watch “The L word” when I can get it in.
Do you have any Oscar picks?
I haven’t seen them all. One film that I saw that I loved is “Volver.” I love Pedro Almodovar’s work, especially the later stuff. Penelope Cruz is up for an award. “Volver” is up for best foreign. I’m not really sure why they’re separated; why it has its own category. I think maybe that needs to be looked at a little more. I would vote for that.
I loved Eddie Murphy’s performance in “Dream Girls.” I just thought it was a stand-out performance.
What is the first step to becoming a media activist?
Learn to see and read mass media against the grain, critique it. Even if you enjoy it, be aware of how it might degrade or misrepresent people. Don't take the news on TV or in the newspapers at face value. Be suspicious. Educate yourself. Read widely and track down other sides of the story so your opinion can be better informed.
Then, find a way to take media into your own hands. Media literacy, which is about learning the concepts that allow you to critique media, also needs to involve learning the tools that will allow you to make your own.
Also, look at alternative media. Even stuff, by so-called professional standards, that is considered good. Professional says who?
I used to be on the board of the women’s film festival here in Chicago that is now defunct. I learned more from films by emerging artists—films that defy mass media standards. They were so wonderful, so memorable. Little pieces that I saw 10 years ago, I still remember. They were so moving. There was something so true to them. Just having something polished and slick that’s not—just look at the Oscars, actually—they fulfill all the standards of excellence and yet you walk away and say, “So what?” You don’t feel changed by it. And then next week you’ve forgotten it. To me that’s not great work.
Some people think alternative media is too biased to the left, and for some reason mainstream media is objective. What do you say to people who hold these beliefs?
[Laughs] First of all, alternative media is made by the right also. It’s just not generated by the corporate media machine, which is what makes it alternative. Media isn’t just movies, it’s also magazines, internet, music videos—there’s such a broad range of information. There are many forms to media.
I think a lot of alternative media is progressive because we’re smart and creative. [Laughs] Does anybody still believe mainstream is objective? Does anybody still believe that objectivity is possible? Everything that’s been going on in the media and around the Iraq war, you’d have to be living in a cave to believe that mainstream media is objective. The purpose of mainstream media is to earn money for its stockholders. Not to inform us. So, whatever serves that end is what is going to be published. For example, in order for Exxon Mobil to make record profits every year, they have to suppress the truth about global warming. Exxon Mobil funds a lot of media. Now it’s just been reported that they’re paying scientists to debunk global warming.
Another movie I would like to win [an Oscar] is the Al Gore movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” That’s up for best documentary. It’s not just about its value as a viewing experience, but the impact it’s had, it’s awesome in terms of widespread education. I think taking that lecture he’s been doing for years—and we’re not talking about just some insignificant guy, this is Al Gore, he has a lot of power in the world—he has been doing this lecture all over the world. But once it became a film, it just escalated its effect, its impact, its reach, and the power surrounding it. The power of the message became amplified. It’s a wonderful example of the power of media—its ability to focus our attention and reframe it. I see it all the time in the work that we do. Bringing that power to the experience, to the realities of marginalized people—it has the same effect on a smaller scale at Beyondmedia.
January 2007
Beloit Daily News
BIFF WINNERS:
• Midwest Feature: “American Gothic”
• Midwest Short: “Auteur”
• Midwest Student: “An Open Door”
• Midwest Documentary: “Turning a Corner”
• Best of Wisconsin: “Side Effects”
• International Feature: “Johnny Was”
• International Short: “Die Besucher”
• International Animation: “Mantis Parable”
• International Documentary: “Downtown Locals
The director and a producer of “American Gothic” are such perfectionists they could find reasons to tweak the movie for the next five years, they acknowledge.
They must have done something right to have won the Beloit International Film Festival award for best Midwest Feature.
The men, Paul Kampf and Robert Last, were just two of the filmmakers who joined community members in walking the red carpet at La Casa Grande Friday night for the BIFF version of the Academy Awards, where directors received a Biffy instead of an Oscar.
Movie theme songs drowned the excited chatter of the semi-formal crowd as people circled around candlelit tables that featured - what else? - bowls of popcorn.
Nine silver Biffy statues sat beneath the movie screen before the ceremony began, but few seemed to notice their presence. Though an honor, winning a Biffy wouldn't define the festival for many of the participants. The experience and conversation with other filmmakers made everyone a winner, Kampf said.
With more than 100 submissions, filmmakers knew they were up against stiff competition. Winning a Biffy would be “insane,” 18-year-old writer and director James Haney said, but participating in the festival was an honor within itself.
“It's dream world and back to finals on Monday,” the California high school senior said.
Haney completed his feature film, “Viola,” in 10 months with the help of 300 West Coast teens from 12 high schools. The 80-minute drama depicts a Chinese boy and an American girl overcoming social boundaries as they connect through music, he said.
Although Haney has produced many shorts, this was his feature debut. Working with hundreds of people taught him many lessons, including coordination and communication, he said.
“Viola” didn't win in its category, International Feature. Instead, “Johnny Was,” a 90-minute drama from the United Kingdom, received the Biffy.
Still, the weekend was Haney's “dream come true.”
Fall 2006
Time Out Chicago
By Margaret Lyons
It's more than just an inside story, though. It's the most thought-provoking documentary we've seen in ages. What it lacks in technical finesse it makes up for in potency. Lucretia Clay tells the camera the story of how she was 14 when her mother sold her to a pimp. Brenda Myers talks of being dragged by a car. Many of the women talk about being sexually abused as children; of being addicted to drugs; about being kidnapped, raped and beaten. "All of them have experienced horrific violence on the job and in their lives," Chasnoff says. "But if they present themselves in an emergency room, or call the police, they're handcuffed and booked because they're criminals... None of these crimes against their bodies, against their person, have ever been prosecuted." Making the film was "as much about healing as it was about media making and advocacy. It was a very intense experience."
Turning a Corner is an intense film to watch, too, and not just because its subjects describe terrible violence and exploitation: It's because it's local. As part of the workshop, the women revisited places where they had transformative experiences. One woman shows us the abandoned three-flat where she used to live, where she would get high and bring her johns. One shows us a park where she was raped. One shows us a lot where her friend's maimed body was discovered. One shows us the stretch of Racine between 47th and 49th Streets where she used to work. Some cry, some remain calm; the unifying thread is one of pain, but each woman tells her own story in her own way.
Sex work is inextricably linked to poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, racism in the criminal-justice system and violence against women. "Street prostitution was the lens," Chasnoff says, "the nexus through which these different issues emerged." The lens focuses most sharply on incarceration. More than 5,000 people are arrested each year in Cook County on prostitution-related charges, and about 75 percent are prostitutes, 25 percent johns and less than 1 percent are pimps. This statistic is mentioned more than a few times. According to the film, around 40 percent of street prostitutes are women of color, 55 percent of people arrested for street prostitution are women of color, as are a staggering 85 percent of those sentenced to jail. In Illinois, prostitution can be prosecuted as a felony; pimping and solicitation are misdemeanors.
Chasnoff says she's in favor of decriminalizing sex work, but the opinions expressed in the film vary from the idea that pimping and solicitation should be felonies to all prostitution should be legal. Wherever you fall within that spectrum, the film makes a solid case that laws are inconsistently applied and skew unfairly to prosecuting women, and that police routinely harass sex workers. Chasnoff says that over the course of making the film, she became "more sensitive to how race, class, age, ability and education construct sex workers' identities." Watching the film has a similar effect.
Summer 2006
The Chicago Reporter: New Voices
By Erica Schlaikjer
Photo by Audrey Cho as it appeared in The Chicago Reporter.
Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Author: Pam DeFiglio Daily Herald Staff Writer - April 18, 2006
Brenda Myers-Powell winces when she thinks about the prostitute murdered in Addison recently.
For 23 years, Myers-Powell exposed herself to the same dangers. In Rosemont, she opened her bedroom door to strangers. In Chicago, she got into cars with men she didn't know.
"I've been shot five times and stabbed 13 times," she says, sitting at a booth in a Rosemont restaurant. "The pimps say they'll protect you, but if the john wants to strangle you, he will."
In the Addison case, police say Kristi Hoening was stabbed to death by a man who'd hired her through an escort service.
Myers-Powell knew that kind of risk as well - but lived long enough to walk away.
Now 48, she talks about these things at a distance. Ten years ago this month, she left the streets, giving up both prostitution and drugs.
She has come a long way in that decade. And she's not the only one.
Independent filmmaker Salome Chasnoff of Beyondmedia Education recently completed a film, "Turning a Corner," about the lives of Myers-Powell and 14 other women who used to sell their bodies on the streets. All of them have amazing stories to tell.
These women haven't merely gotten off the streets. They've become activists. They worked on the film, and they've lobbied legislators in Springfield for a bill that would help prostitutes.
"We're doing it to put a face on prostitution," says Helen Smith, one of the women profiled in the film. "We're human beings with feelings. Something tragic happened to put us out on the streets."
Rough beginnings
For many of the women, the "something tragic" was being sexually abused as children. Many never got parental support or counseling after the abuse, and it left them with a skewed sense of what was appropriate sexually, according to Samir Goswami, who formerly ran a child abuse prevention program at the Northwest Council Against Sexual Assault in Arlington Heights.
That vulnerability - and lack of boundaries for their bodies - left these women with few defenses when pimps pushed them into prostituting themselves.
Lucretia Clay had it worse than most. In the film she describes how she turned 12 and her mother sold her to a pimp in Chicago. At that age, she couldn't comprehend what was happening.
"You have to be careful when you say things like, 'She's there by choice,' " Myers-Powell cautions. "When you're 13 and you get into this, you don't know what you're doing."
Sometimes the abuse starts even younger. In the film, a former prostitute named Betty Gibson talks about a plantation overseer in Mississippi forcing her to fondle him, and then giving her 50 cents - when she was just 4 years old.
Other women said when they were children they saw prostitutes in their poor Chicago neighborhoods, and the women looked glamorous.
Myers-Powell, for example, talks about seeing women getting into cars wearing satin dresses and sparkly jewelry.
"I wanted to be all shiny like them," recalls Myers-Powell, who was molested at age 11. "I felt so bad inside. But at the time, I didn't know the pain they felt inside."
Myers-Powell got pregnant at age 14, and again at 15, by neighborhood boyfriends, she says. She took up her aunt's offer to raise her two daughters in a stable home, and visited them when she could.
Also at 15, Myers-Powell began a life in prostitution.
Cinderella syndrome
In the process of making the film, Chasnoff brought the women to places where they had worked. Stories and emotions started to flow.
"It's hard to come back and look at this place," says Clay, wiping back tears at a site in Chicago. "It's hard to believe I spent 26 years of my life out here. I got brain-locked into what I was doing."
Gibson, the woman abused as a 4-year-old, describes in the film how she fled her parents' house after being mistreated. She started in the sex trade at 15.
"At first it was exciting. I thought my pimp really liked me," she says in the film. "I thought after a while I'd get an apartment and wouldn't have to sell my body."
That never happened. But social service agencies offered her a hand, and she pulled herself up.
Debra Rollins tells the camera that she worked as a prostitute from age 19 to 42.
"Nobody loved me," she says. "I wanted a man to love me. Now I know I can love myself."
Myers-Powell takes that thought further.
"The same people that victimize us, we want them to rescue us. It's the Cinderella syndrome," she says. "But we meet them as 'hos and they treat us like 'hos.' "
Goswami explains that the women's longing for love goes back to their being abused as children.
"If it was a dad or grandpa doing the abuse, the child starts thinking that's how he expresses love and affection," explains Goswami, now executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
"Survivors of prostitution say they started looking for that (affection) from their customers."
'She can't leave'
Many women turn to prostitution because they're homeless and need quick cash.
A Chicago Coalition for the Homeless study found that 75 percent of sex workers, at all levels of prostitution, experience homelessness.
"I know of a woman working for an escort service. She can't leave, because she has no other way to pay rent," says the coalition's Goswami.
While some top prostitutes charge $800, a fee of $10 to $100 is more typical. That's before the pimp takes half. Then factor in the cost of drugs.
"I've never met a survivor yet who said, 'I can do this sober,'" says Goswami.
When the coalition surveyed the women, 74 percent reported substance abuse issues.
And when the Coalition asked women why they worked as prostitutes, one-quarter said to feed their kids, one-quarter said to pay rent and one-quarter said they had a part-time job but it didn't pay enough to live on.
"They're not making money in prostitution," he says. "If they were, you'd see a lot more retiring early."
From street to Senate
The women in the film have become leaders in a coalition initiative called the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table. They're looking for ways to help people get out of the sex trade, and they talk about the issues prostitutes face.
They have a bone to pick with the police.
The film shows them angrily questioning why police arrest prostitutes while pimps and johns go free for the most part.
On film, Myers-Powell rattles off a statistic: Of the prostitution arrests made, about three-quarters are of prostitutes, 25 percent are johns and 1 percent are pimps. The coalition compiled that information after monitoring Chicago arrest data.
The women say police mainly target street prostitutes, not the higher-paid call girls and women selling themselves out of massage parlors or strip clubs. Those women aren't as visible to cops cruising the streets.
"When we think about sex workers, we think about street prostitutes, but depending on what study you look at, they are only between 10 and 20 percent of the total," says filmmaker Chasnoff.
Indoor prostitutes have higher status in the flesh trade. When a prostitute ages, she is often forced to walk the streets.
Myers-Powell worked indoors when she was young. Some of that work was in Rosemont, where conventions and air travelers provided a steady clientele.
"Rosemont used to have a lot of prostitution in condos, because of people coming through O'Hare," she says. "There were a lot of massage parlors. They made a lot of money because nobody was kicking in the door."
To get business, she said, pimps and operators would advertise in alternative newspapers or give a cut to cab drivers who brought in customers.
Gary Mack, a spokesman for the village of Rosemont, agrees that it's an issue.
"It's a systemic problem throughout the world: Wherever you have millions of conventioneers who pass through an area, it's fertile ground for this to exist," he says. "Rosemont has worked diligently to eradicate this problem, but large conventions are probably one of the most lucrative areas for those who ply this trade."
"When people are making money like that," Myers-Powell adds, "does it ever stop?"
If there are profits to be made, she says, pimps will be involved.
The women of PART are fighting back against them. They're championing a bill called the Predator Accountability Act, which the Illinois Senate and House have both passed. It's on its way to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's desk, and he'll have 60 days to decide whether to sign it.
The bill would allow prostitutes to sue predators, such as pimps and johns, for financial damages. Prostitutes would have to prove they were recruited into the sex trade, and that the predator profited.
The film shows the women visiting at the Capitol, telling lawmakers articulate, moving stories of how pimps took advantage of them.
A john could kill you
Sex workers face a litany of miseries.
"You may get beat up, go to jail, you may have bad nights, moments of depression when you're feeling like the lowest thing on Earth. But you start accepting this as normal," says Myers-Powell.
"When it becomes too painful, you start medicating - drugs or drinking - and now you find yourself in the middle of two things - trying to live, and now you're on drugs. You just go on until you get out, like I did, or you die."
Prostitutes turn to each other for support.
"We used to laugh about, 'Hey, it's been a good week, nobody raped me or took my money,' " Myers-Powell adds.
Many of the women in the film had friends who were killed. It happens on an all too regular basis.
About seven weeks ago, prostitute Kristi Hoenig, 21, was murdered in Addison.
Gary Schuning has been charged with killing Hoenig as well as his own mother. Prosecutors charge that Schuning killed his mother first at her Addison home. He later phoned an escort service to have a call girl delivered to the house. When Hoenig discovered evidence of the crime, she too was murdered, police say.
"We are targets of people who are sick like that," Myers-Powell comments. "This was really disturbing to me."
Besides the violence, prostitutes are used to having society treat them like dirt. Myers-Powell will never forget the time a john pushed her out of a car moving at 40 mph. She was taken to a hospital bloodied and unable to speak. The flesh on one arm was ripped open, and she was in danger of losing an eye.
Rape crisis counselors and domestic violence counselors were standing by to help her when, she recalls, a police officer said he recognized her, and that she was a prostitute.
"Everybody left," she says. "Nobody cared. I just felt so low I wanted to die."
Fortunately, one of the doctors struck up a rapport with Myers over the four days she spent in the hospital.
"She said, 'You don't realize what a great girl you are. I'm going to get you some services, and you've got to promise me you're going to follow through."
They know her past
Myers-Powell hopped a bus to Genesis House in Chicago and, at 38, started a journey to recovery. The nonprofit agency helps women get out of prostitution. They gave Myers-Powell counseling for a range of issues, such as being an abuse survivor. They also instructed her in practical skills, like how to get a job and a social security card.
Now she works as a case manager and HIV prevention specialist for a network of clinics based at Mount Sinai Hospital, although she says she managed to avoid contracting the disease during her years on the streets. She has become an outspoken activist for rights and protections for prostitutes.
"I know I wasn't saved unless I could speak out," Myers-Powell says.
Neatly dressed and attractive, her hair in loose curls, she blends in with suburbanites at the Rosemont restaurant. Her cell phone trills periodically with calls from family members.
She got married two years ago, and the marriage brought her three stepchildren.
Myers-Powell says she has also developed a close relationship with her two grown daughters. One became a doctor; the other worked for a bank before having a baby and returning to school full time.
Myers-Powell worried her work supporting prostitutes would embarrass them, but she says they know about her past and support her.
So she will continue to make noise about the mistreatment and dangers prostitutes face. She wants people to see past the myths about workers in the flesh industry.
"When something bad happens to a prostitute, people say, 'She got what she deserved.'
"But it's not, because who deserves that?" Myers-Powell asks. "What she deserves is a way out."
February 19, 2006
By Jayette Bolinski
State Journal-Register, The (Springfield, IL) - February 19, 2006
Illinois lawmakers have been invited to the showing of a new film about the sex trade in Chicago in an attempt to raise awareness about the matter locally, as well as two bills that are pending in the state legislature.
Titled "Turning a Corner," the hour-long film by Beyondmedia tells the stories of Chicagoans involved in the sex trade, as well as the violence, substance abuse and homelessness that goes hand-in-hand with prostitution.
In addition, the film follows their efforts to raise public awareness and lobby Springfield legislators. It also focuses on some law enforcement issues related to prostitution.
The film was produced by the Prostitution Alternatives Roundtable, an outgrowth of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. It will be shown at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Theater 3 at the Hoogland Center for the Arts, 420 S. Sixth St. A reception will precede the screening at 5:30 p.m. and a panel discussion will follow.
"The primary target of it is the state legislature, although it will be of interest to anybody who wants to see sexual exploitation reduced in our state," said Bernie Carver, executive director of Positive Options, Referrals and Alternatives (PORA), a Springfield agency that helps women with a history of prostitution and exploitation by providing a residence for them, treatment programs, counseling, outreach, education and referrals. It also does outreach for sexually abused men.
The panel discussion will feature four local women who have been involved in prostitution and will be led by Polly Poskin, head of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
One of the women who will be on the panel is Deb, a Springfield resident who asked that her last name not be used because her employer and many of her friends are not aware of her background. She graduated from PORA and attends 12-step meetings on a regular basis.
Deb, who came to Springfield from Chicago in 2000 so she could get into the local Gateway substance abuse program, was arrested for prostitution more than 75 times and spent time in jail and prison. She became caught up in drugs and alcohol by age 11 and started working for escort services when she was 22. She did that for about three years before becoming a street-level prostitute.
At one point she hooked up with a Chicago police officer who worked out a scheme in which Deb would attract clients during times he was on duty. He would direct her where to take the johns, give her enough time to talk to them and get their money, then pull up in a squad car as if to arrest them. The officer would handcuff Deb, shake down the johns and take their money, then send them on their way and let her go.
During her second trip to prison she began thinking "this might not be what I want to do when I grow up." She got involved in treatment and began to understand she might have a problem, she said.
Deb said she hopes to stress to people that "what we do or what we did doesn't make us who we are." She has gone to the Statehouse to lobby for bills related to the sex trade and said she thinks women need more information about the types of treatments and services that are available to help them clean up their lives.
"I firmly believe in treatment because it worked for me. I believe if someone had offered it to me at the time, my life would have been very different," she said. "I think that if there was more information out there to women who are prostituting - more information and more hope - then there might be a better success rate and it might stop the problem of prostitution."
March/April 2005
By Alison Parker
Clamour Magazine
Media provides the threads of a web that interconnect a community. Stories are shared, opinions are heard, and people are given the chance to hear perspectives that they may otherwise never know about. Making alternative media is crucial when so many relevant stories are pushed into the ground. Beyondmedia Education allows some of those stories to emerge from the earth.
Filmmaker Salome Chasnoff founded the organization in 1996 after producing a documentary about the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. Chasnoff emerged from the conference inspired and equally frustrated at the lack of media control women had. "There was a really strong need for young women to have increased media access and media skills, and also to have a different kind of education," Chasnoff says. "An education that not only delivers skills, but also supports them as developing women."
Beyondmedia's programs provide in-depth groundwork for each participant to learn and grow from. "[We have] year-long workshops in which girls and young women of diverse backgrounds learn to decipher the messages of dominant media and alternative media, and they create a wide range of their own media, including video, web design, digital imaging, audio recording, creative writing, photography and performance. Then they develop and distribute a group project."
The girls select a topic to work with, one that holds meaning and what they want to explore, many times ranging from race to sexual orientation to class issues. Says Chasnoff; "We talk about the topic through the many months and develop ideas about who the audience is, how we want to communicate the issues, and we create a project. They distribute it -- they have a public screenings and they package it, and they get out there with it."
The organization works with women in communities most in need of media education and services because of economic and/or social exclusion. Beyondmedia has partnered with over 90 community-based organizations and schools to produce media arts on subjects ranging from girls' activism to women's incarceration.
In the Women and Prison project, incarcerated women and girls, former prisoners and their families use media arts to voice their stories, promote public dialogue and community organizing. An upcoming online project, Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance will feature essays, personal narratives, creative writing, links to reports, studies, and other resources on women's incarceration.
Beyondmedia recently facilitated a media workshop with a group of young women with multiple disabilities. The group eventually produced their own video, Beyond Disability: The Fe Fe Stories. "After facilitating a support group for girls with disabilities for six years, I guess the most stunning and transformative thing that we ever did was to hook up with Beyondmedia," says Susan Nussbaum, founder and coordinator of the group. "Disabled girls are never presented with these kinds of opportunities by the systems that rule their lives. It's only natural that when they are given a challenge, they rise to the occasion."
Besides media literacy and production skills, these girls also gain personal empoewrment. Self-esteem, self-confidence and social consciousness are able to surface more freely, as well as a sense of personal power. "They become more aware of how their personal issues, their lives, and the community they build within a group become part of a larger society," says Chasnoff.
What perhaps the most important thing Beyondmedia provides is guidance, that gentle nudge to get one to do what they are fully capable of doing. Every woman has it in them, but it's difficult, Chasnoff says, to do it on your own, especially living in a society where women are marginalized in a male-dominated world. "Girls are more often prone to invisbility, and the inability to have an impact. They're more often voiceless; they more often accept that role. And a lot of them see their only opportunity is through their relationships with men. It's important that women shape public thinking, shape public dialogue, and shape public policy."
topMarch 5, 2004
Chicago Sun-Times
Artwork, performances and panel discussions by former prisoners, both women and girls, will be featured in a Women's History Month exhibition on women in prison sponsored by Beyondmedia Education and Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM).
The monthlong exhibit, opening tonight at Los Manos Gallery, incorporates an interactive multimedia installation re-creating a prison cell. Panel discussions throughout the month will address race and gender in the prison system, children and parents in prison, resistance to the prison-industrial complex, and the challenges and opportunities of re-entry into society.
Former prisoners on the panels include poet and playwright Pamela Thomas, Sister Kathleen Desautels of the 8th Day Center, Joanne Archibald of CLAIM and Wenona Thompson, program coordinator of Girl Talk at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.
Los Manos Gallery is located 5220 N. Clark. The gallery is open from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and noon to 10 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Admission is free. For more information, call (773) 973-2280.
Caption: "Voices in Time" is one of the works of art on display at Los Manos Gallery in an exhibit examining women in prison.
March 3, 2004
By Raoul Mowatt
Chicago Tribune
Even being behind bars cannot imprison the creative spirit of some women.
That's proven by the multimedia art exhibit "Voices in Time: Lives in Limbo," which aims to provide female inmates a venue for expression and healing. Organizers also wanted to help viewers appreciate the full humanity and predicament of female inmates.
"I hope that viewers can see the work, hear the voices of the artists, identify with their pain and their hopes," said Salome Chasnoff, executive director of Beyondmedia Education , one of the exhibit's organizers.
"Voices" opens Friday at Las Manos Gallery, 5220 N. Clark St. In conjunction with the exhibit, weekly panels will discuss issues pertaining to inmates. Crafts by incarcerated women also will be available for purchase.
"Art is not simply a product of culture but, more accurately, an agency of culture, an important means through which culture re-negotiates itself."A prison sentence is high on the list of things no woman wants. What are you going to do if you have to serve time? If you lose your kids, give birth in restraints, get bribed by guards or other prisoners, face employment discrimination afterwards, who's going to do anything about it? Who's responsible? Who's going to help you heal?
- Salome Chasnoff
Salome Chasnoff Named a Leader for the 21st Century and Ida B. Wells Bravery in Journalism Awardee by Women's eNews
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