From Latent to Visible: A Photography and Writing Program for Adults Living with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness

In 2010 I originated "From Latent to Visible: A Photography and Writing Program for Adults Living with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness". In this fifteen-week program, participants living in psychiatric board and care residences were provided education and instruction in photography along with multiple use film cameras. Invited to make photographs about their lives and themselves and then to respond to their images in written words, the participants produced work that was expressive, original and evocative.

Given photography’s inherent characteristics its study and practice proved to be especially therapeutic for program participants, promoting psychological development and positive behavioral change while providing an expressive and meaningful voice for those who did not previously have an effective and reliable one.

This project had to be abruptly suspended in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. It is anticipated that it will resume Spring 2023.

Please click on the thumbnail images below to see examples of this work.