One summer 10-plus years ago, after witnessing a large number of teens being repeatedly moved along by the Brattleboro police, John Willis and Bill Ledger decided to offer a free, month-long photography course for area teenagers.
Almost overnight, a wellspring of community support propelled the duo’s idea forward and, with the addition of a darkroom and teaching facility at the Brattleboro Teen Center (now the Boys’ and Girls’ Club), it soon became a year-round program, the In-Sight Photography Project.
Over a decade later, the project has a new facility on Flat Street, a vast volunteer network and paid part- and full-time workers. Participants, who have numbered almost 1,000, can take classes at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Students also have the opportunity to take part in affiliated programs like Exposures, a cross-cultural youth exchange program in which teens from Vermont, New York City, the Navajo tribe in Arizona and the Oglala tribe in South Dakota travel to a host community and use photography and other art as a means of communication to aid in exploring each other’s cultures.
Some of In-Sight’s most successful programs, according to its website, are the incentive classes. Students ages 11 to 18 can earn their own cameras (free of charge to the student) by simply participating in every class and assignment, and serving as mentors to new students in the next session. These incentive classes echo In-Sight’s basic mission: to offer underprivileged youth a chance to learn how to express themselves through photography in a geographic area. This mission has been carried to other parts of the world by former staff members like Ariane Burke, who set up a program similar to In-Sight in Romania.
Besides its impressive breadth of classes and exchange programs, what makes In-Sight unique is its location. According to current In-Sight program director Stephen Dybas, a project of this scope is a rare find outside of a major city.
“To my knowledge, there aren’t many [projects like In-Sight] that are located in small suburban or rural areas,” said Dybas in a recent interview with the Advocate. “Most of the projects that work like this with youth and photography are in places like Boston, New York, Seattle and San Francisco.”
To help fund In-Sight, which is a non-profit 501c3, the board of directors solicits grants and donations and engages in fund-raising efforts like the program’s annual silent auction of artwork by students, faculty and professional photographers. Although proceeds from the auction comprise roughly 25 percent of the program’s total operation budget—last year bringing in some $23,000—the auction, like the program it benefits, started off as a meager affair.
“The history [of the auction] is that there’s not a lot of history,” said Dybas, chuckling. “It started out as a small auction.”
Despite the fact that all proceeds from sales go directly to In-Sight, the directors have repeatedly managed to secure work by many prominent regional, national and international artists (which this year include Robert Rauschenberg, Duane Michals, Mike and Doug Starn, Susan Meiselas, Justin Kimball and Virginia Beahan, whose “View from the Ruins of Club Nautica, Santiago de Cuba, 2004” is pictured), due to the program’s philanthropic nature.
“We’ve been fortunate enough where we’ve had a lot of great support by a lot of photographers,” said Dybas. “[In-Sight has] really great programs for at-risk kids or kids in need of a good environment outside of school, so a lot of [artists] are willing to support it.”
Although the auction is in its 10th year, 2008 is only the second year it’s been held primarily online. Last year, former program director Eric Maxen (Dybas came on board in June) and the board president ushered the auction into cyberspace, hoping to expand its reach past southern Vermont and increase sales and awareness of In-Sight.
Sales rose by some 40 percent from the year before. Despite that significant jump, Dybas is still being cautious about this year’s possible outcome.
“That number is not necessarily forecasting for future auctions,” said Dybas. “Right now we’re doing okay, I think, but certainly my concern is that [revenue] is going to go down, what with the economy being like it is, and this being only our second year online.”
The silent auction, which also includes numerous photography books, is on display in the Vermont Center for Photography at 49 Flat Street in Brattleboro (next door to In-Sight). Through 9 p.m. Oct. 29, bidders can place a bid or check the status of an existing one online, or stop by the VCP and physically place a bid. At any point a bidder may purchase a piece of work outright by paying the full retail price.
The closing reception takes place on Oct. 30 from 5 to 8 p.m., when bidders may place final bids in person or by proxy. All works can either be picked up or shipped at regular rates at the expense of the buyer. As of press time, bids (including mandatory opening bids) ranged from $3 to $5,500.”