Documentary photography · Community psychology RESEARCHER · TRAINER
Give a community a camera, and it will show you what to change.
Photovoice hands the camera to the community itself. People photograph the reality they live, read the images together, and turn them into a shared portrait of a place or a problem, and a list of what to change.
I am a documentary photographer and community psychologist, and a pioneer of the method in Italy since 2007. That double training, the eye and the mind, is what lets me use photography not only to document reality, but to take part in it.
HOW IT WORKS
One method, three movements.
From the individual who learns to see, to the group that builds a shared analysis, to the community that carries change to its institutions.
WHAT I DO WITH
One method, declined by purpose.
Photovoice is my core method. I adapt it to the goal: research, training, engagement, mapping, change. These are some of its forms, with real projects.
Scientific research
Qualitative research & mapping
Participatory studies that produce evidence and thematic maps of a territory or an issue.
Case: energy poverty for Enel (Ener-Equity), and childhood-abuse research with the University of Padua.
Citizen engagement
Community & climate engagement
Residents document and analyse their own place, narrowing the gap with institutions.
Cases: climate work for EuCliPa in Italy and the Netherlands; climate photo walks at Venice Climate Week and Padova Climate Action Week; migrant integration, Municipality of Bologna.
Training
Training & team building
The method brought into organisations, for vision, cohesion and shared reflection.
Cases: team building for Atlas Copco; training laboratories for artisans and workers with Confartigianato.
Social Change
Inclusion & reintegration
The method as a tool for dignity, voice and reintegration of fragile groups.
Cases: reintegration of former prisoners, UEPE; laboratories for unemployed people, Istituto Veneto; gender inclusion with EMERGENCY.
POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS
The method is a key, not a lock.
Once a community can photograph what it lives, almost any theme can be mapped, understood and improved from the inside. A few of the directions the method can take.
Environment & territory
Mapping a place
Urban heat maps with existing climate shelters and places that could easily become ones; perceived environmental risks; accessibility of a city for the elderly or people with disabilities; the neglect and care of public space.
Organisations & work
Seeing a workplace
Improving the system of relationships in a workplace; team building that surfaces unspoken visions and tensions; mapping organisational wellbeing; building shared identity in new teams.
Health & fragility
Giving a voice
Chronic patients on their own care; reducing stigma around mental health, addiction or illness; reintegration of prisoners, homeless people, migrants; mapping a community's care needs.
Culture & museums
Designing with visitors
Improving museum routes with visitors themselves, in distinct versions for adults and children; reading what works and what loses people in an exhibition; participatory design of new displays.
School & education
Teaching how to see
Laboratories that teach children to recognise and report abuse; visual and critical-thinking education; mapping what makes school a good or hard place; work on bullying, inclusion and transitions.
Digital & new fields
Beyond the street
Participatory maps of negative, positive and improvable places, online as well as physical; assessing the real experience of a public digital service through citizens' eyes.
The flagship declination
Photo Story, adopted by the European Commission
From this work I created Photo Story, the declination of the method developed for the climate context and adopted by the European Commission for the EU Climate Pact. It is now used across Europe, by others, without me: the sign of a method that works.
TRUSTED BY
A METHOD DELIVERED FOR
European Commission University of Padua Enel Atlas Copco Veneto Region
CNR Municipality of Monza Municipality of Bologna Confartigianato Roma Tre EMERGENCY