March Member of the Month, Photography Without Borders

The first connection I had with PhillyCAM and PWB came in the Summer of 2024 when we collaborated on a Video Art Workshop made possible by a micro grant from the Bartol Foundation. The week-long program was implemented as a pilot and first step in building a bridge with our cohort of students, as several of them began expressing interest in video since I began working with PWB in 2022.

For myself, as passionate as I am with photography, video was the logical next step in developing my skills as a multimedia artist and performer in my late teens and twenties. A number of PWB students from our Taller program joined the workshop and despite having only one week to create anything, all of them ended up producing some level of work, with two of them assisting in editing the final exit interviews.

Other experiences we've shared with PhillyCAM include a sound art workshop co-facilitated by Termite TV outside of PWB, two of my older students, Miguel Rosa and Justin Plant attended and created spoken word and original music for. 

Sounds + moving images from our cohort of PWB students have led to creating evocative and impressionistic pieces that have made a splash in the local mediascape of Philadelphia, and I look forward to further exchanges on this bridge between PWB and PhillyCAM as we move further into video programming with our youth.

- Adam Cooper-Terán