ESTEVAN - The Estevan Public Youth Centre wrapped up a four-week project with a photo exhibit.
Life in an Instant, in which young females from Estevan and the Pheasant Rump Nakota First Nation were asked to share the stories of their lives in southeast Saskatchewan through instant images, came to an end on June 30.
Many parents and community members used the opportunity to enjoy the results of the participants' work and stopped by the photo exhibition at the EPYC building.
EPYC executive director Juli Dzuba said it was the first project of this type for the organization, and she was satisfied with how it went.
"I think it turned out amazing. And I'm really happy with how invested the girls were in the project and how much excitement they had from it and all of the great pictures that they were taking. And I think that this photo exhibition has been a really great wrap-up of everything," Dzuba said.
The original plan didn't include a public photo exhibit, but participants agreed that they wanted to share their work with the community.
"We gave them the choice of whether or not they wanted it to be public, or just friends and family. And they all decided that public was fine. And I think that for some of them, it was maybe a bit of a big step because sharing your work with more than just your family can be a little hard to do sometimes. But they all decided that it was something that they wanted to share with everybody," Dzuba said.
While the task was the same for everyone, the outcomes were unique in each case. Some of the collages had a lot of pictures reflecting on friendship. For some of the girls, their families were a central piece, for others, nature played a major role. Some focused on their pets, while others had pictures of their siblings. Saskatchewan's Living Skies became a common piece for many participants.
"There was a lot of discussion from everybody that participated. It was really interesting to see how, yes, everybody has their own unique experiences living in rural or southeast Saskatchewan. But also, it was interesting to see the commonalities between the girls that came out. So, there's a lot of nature pictures or things that were reflecting their hobbies that were very similar, or even just their interpretations of pictures were kind of similar in some ways. It was just really interesting to see how sometimes they are drastically different, and sometimes they're very much the same," Dzuba shared.
Participants took home the frames with the pictures they created over those four weeks. Each one also received an instant camera that they used for the research and got to keep afterwards.
Dzuba said they were very grateful for the opportunity and the support.
"I'm just really thankful for the support and the community support that we got for this event in Estevan and throughout the province," Dzuba said, noting that the information about the project was picked up in Regina.
All works were scanned and added to the research done by PhD candidate Meighan Mantei (Carleton University). the study is intended to explore girls' relationships to the space and community they live in through their own eyes.
