art/vision/voice - Maryland Institute College of Art

case study: california state university, monterey bay 89
exterior of the world outside. The metaphor of weather gave birth to
the project Looking in/Looking Out, and production began.
In hopes of engaging them further, the youth were given cameras to
take pictures of one another. These photo portraits inspired conversations
about how the youth pictured themselves. csumb students started to
see another side of the youth. Soon the aspirations and dreams of the
Watsonville youth became apparent in the conversations and in the
development of their pictures.
As the weeks passed, the csumb faculty began to observe a difference.
The community youth began to express feelings of hope; even speaking
of dreams they had for the future. Meeting with the youth softened
the university students, and a questionnaire was developed about weather
in response to the weather images that were emerging in the words
of the youth.
Completing this questionnaire, which asked the youth to think of
themselves in weather-related terms inspired creativity:
“What weather are you?”
“What weather best describes you when you are angry?”
“What’s the weather like in your home?”
“What kind of weather do you experience in school?”
“Which elements do you feel best describe you: earth, wind,
fire, or water?”
Youth were asked to match emotions to natural phenomena:
flood rage
snow joy
desert hope
earthquake hate
wind peace
hail family
clouds friendship
rain frustrated
forest death
A bond began to develop—the csumb students and the community
youth were only five years apart in some cases, and they discovered that
they often shared similar concerns. As relationships developed between the
university students and community youth, the university students also
began to see an innocence and hopefulness that they had previously
not acknowledged in these young people.
The photo portraits that the youth had taken would now become
the basis for the digital art process. None of the youth had worked with
computers, and not all of the university students had mastered the