Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Participatory video, formalized through the National Film Board of Canada (NFB)’s Challenge for Changed project in the late 1960s, has been taught as part of documentary and journalism courses for a year in South Africa. At the University of Cape Town, documentary production students are challenged to produce a short video in collaboration with a partner from an under-resourced community in order to learn, through practice, about creative collaboration and community engagement. In the process, they are challenged to critically view their positionality and privilege in relation to their co-author. In 2019, they had the opportunity to conceptualize and co-author this video assignment using 360 degree cameras for the first time. This paper contains analyses of the videos, student reflection on the process and experience, staff reflection on the use of collaborative learning and assessment-guided learning as pedagogies, and it frames the exercise against “use value,” a notion that underlies participatory video.