Homeplaces: photography, migration and memory

DCU Intergenerational Learning Programme, in partnership with Photowings and the University of Northampton, have started an ILP-led project on the topic of family albums and a sense of place, Homeplaces. Building on the previous project on family albums and autobiographical narratives, this project intends to tell the story of parts of the city and country through photographs from family albums and memories of individuals, in an intergenerational context. The project links third level students with older people, around photographs from the older participants’ family albums; the photographs are used as conversation starters and keepers of memories in a series of interviews and conversations between generations. These conversations and stories are recorded by the younger students and produced into a multimedia artefact. All artefacts will then be gathered in a dedicated space on the Photowings website, thus mapping places and memories throughout place and time. This project’s aim is to map local places using old photographs from ILP participants’ family albums, and the stories that they evoke. Through this endeavor, the aims of the project are to: • Illustrate and promote visual literacy, especially in relation to photography. • Facilitate and foster interdisciplinary learning and collaboration. • Encourage deeper critical thinking and reflection. • Promote civic and community engagement through community-based learning. • Widen participation and intergenerational learning. • Foster social innovation and entrepreneurial changemaking • Illustrate and utilize the PhotoWings words: Communication, Collaboration, Storytelling, Trust, Self-Discovery, Empathy, Critical Thinking, Inspiration, Context, Visual Literacy, Change, Legacy, Perspective. Focusing on the migrant experience across different generations, my work will extend DCU’s Ireland-based project to explore the local Irish migrant population within Northampton (UK). I hope to create a body of photographic portraits of individuals from the community in their homes in Northampton. As the work explores identity and the use of photography in the context of migration, images of their ‘newly’ established homes in relation to places that have been left behind will create interesting juxtapositions.