BLINK: Through Children’s Eyes

In December of 2005 we traveled to Khao Lak, Thailand to teach a two-month photography and filmmaking workshop to a small group of ten to twelve year old children at the local school. Some generous Canadians donated five video camera kits and ten still cameras to the school for our art experiment. The goal was to help the local children express themselves and teach others about what it is like to live through an extraordinary event like the tsunami. We sought to build confidence, self-esteem and hope.

We expected to find a flattened, devastated community. We knew there were large language and cultural barriers to overcome. But after the first awkward days of teaching we discovered a unique beauty and purity in the photographs and videos the children produced. Blink: Through Children’s Eyes presents the work of Pookie, Beer, Su, Man, Boom, Bun, Pai, Man 2, Van, Tam, Bew, Pui, Lek, Sai, Art, Wen, Prang, and Nut. The project gave them responsibility and an opportunity to explore their artistic side.

In February we left the village with the hundreds of still photographs and hours of video footage they had shot. We realized we had come as their teachers but in the end we left as their students.