The Trailer has just been completed. View below
Reflections on Race Trailer from derek burrows on Vimeo.
WHY THE PHOTOGRAPHS?
My distinctive approach is to show people very early photographs, some more than 150 years old, and then to ask them what they think they are seeing without giving them any information. These images from a distant past have the power to jar people out of their defensiveness, to move them to speak in ways that they would not in everyday life. I ask them to say what they think they see, then to reflect, to tell their own stories as evoked by the images.
My working assumption is that imagination is the key to understanding. When we listen carefully, the stories we tell teach us about ourselves. Our ways of seeing the stories we tell may contribute to a broader conversation about how we can achieve unity through our diversity.
WHO AM I?
I am Derek Burrows — storyteller, musician, web designer, and filmmaker (http://derekburrows.com). My work as a performer and educator uses stories and music to teach people about the rewards of exploring cultural diversity and how to understand and relate to each other.
OTHER IMPORTANT PEOPLE WITH THIS PROJECT ARE ITS PRODUCERS:
Greg Fried and Marie Johansen.
HOW WILL THE FUNDING BE USED?
Funding for “Reflections on Race” will go towards the making of the documentary as well as a series of short films. Using twelve 19th century photographs, I will interview a number of people of different cultures for each image as we explore together what these images mean to them. These interviews will be used to create a series of three minute films centered around each specific image. Making these films and the documentary involves travel to interview people, transcribing interviews, editing, and producing each piece which will be put up on a website so that they can be available to educational institutions and the general public.
WHERE WILL “REFLECTIONS ON RACE” BE SHOWN?
The documentary “Reflections on Race” will be screened for a variety of audiences, both at film festivals and at schools and universities.
“Reflections on Race ” is also part of a larger, web-based project called Mirror of Race (mirrorofrace.org), a federally recognized nonprofit organization devoted to teaching, learning, and talking about how we see the Other. Each of the short films in “Reflections on Race” will be connected with an image exhibited on the Mirror of Race website. Access will be entirely free and open to the viewing public. The interviews will be integrated with other educational materials, such as essays by scholars and other writers, artworks and teaching guides that invite teachers to bring these images, interviews, essays and other works into the broader conversation of the classroom.
One of the images that influenced this exploration.
Some Interviews