Focus In: City Snaps

In the summer of 2019, Dream Scene Placemaking, the husband and wife team of Anna Lee Roeder and Erik Vasilauskas, partnered with the City of Kalamazoo, with support from the Kalamazoo Public Library and KalBlue Printing, to facilitate a community public art project called City Snaps.

A Personal Connection
Roeder was an art student of mine in middle school when I was teaching about creating social impact work for display in our small town of Bridgman. I felt that some seeds I had planted regarding how art attunes people to their surroundings and contributes to their community had sprouted and blossomed when I saw her and her husband’s enthusiastic use of art to strengthen community connections in my larger hometown of Kalamazoo.

City Snaps Procedures
In this project, single-use 35mm cameras were distributed throughout the city in outdoor discoverable kits. Roeder and Vasilauskas divided forty cameras among several mesh bags, along with an instruction sheet, and placed the bags at various locations downtown. Residents walking down the street were invited to open the kits and take photos.

“We stashed disposable cameras ... all around Kalamazoo in the different neighborhoods with a flier in each bag instructing people to take pictures of the people, places, and things they love in town,” Roeder shared. “When people were done, they took the cameras to the Kalamazoo Public Library.”

Approximately a third of the cameras were returned, which yielded 600 photos. The photos were printed on adhesive-backed exterior vinyl, which Anna collaged onto ten utility boxes.

Roeder reflected, “When I look at these images, I get a feel for what this community represents.” She received feedback that the images were great conversation starters for pedestrians, which encouraged thought about what the city streets have to offer, as well as potential improvements.

The initial project was completely anonymous, so there was no contact with photographers. Nevertheless, Roeder stated, “It was evident that kids had participated in the first round. You could see the perspective of shorter stature, lower-to-the-ground perspective, or photographs of other kids or of siblings.”

Going Further with Workshops
To refine the concept further, provide direct visual arts education, and give credit to the photographers, Roeder and Vasilauskas worked with the Kalamazoo Parks and Recreation Summer Camps to offer half-day workshops at several locations around the city.

Instruction started with basic operating procedures for the 35mm cameras, including warnings about opening the back and exposing the film to light. Then came a guided walk around the parks using matboard viewfinders for composition planning. Students searched for composition features such as close-ups and point-of-view examples, as well as subjects like landscapes, portraits, or community expressions.

Following the walkthrough, “we retraced our steps with the actual cameras so that [students] could capture certain images they had already visualized,” Roeder explained. Filmbased versus digital photography was addressed as Roeder encouraged students to engage in the process rather than the final product, developing delayed gratification. She noted that Dream Scene will repeat the project this summer with digital cameras because much of the learning taking place seemed to come from composing and sharing the shots.

After the photos were processed, students were identified and credited on the prints. Roeder collaged and displayed a selection of representative pieces outside the community center where she and Vasilauskas work.

Reaction
I am impressed by the level of engagement in creating art that enriches people’s lives generated through this thoughtful visual arts project. The experiences people had in these two iterations of City Snaps generated awareness of their community through art-making and enjoyment of meeting people, sharing their vision of strong, healthy community life.