groundWork – community activism narratives

groundWork is a non-profit environmental justice organisation working primarily in South Africa and seeks to improve the quality of life of vulnerable people. After many years of activist experience, groundwork is interested in exploring ways of tactically archiving and mobilising their efforts. LIGHT PLACE is collaborating with groundWork to develop a methodology that merges creative approaches with oral history to support the organisation’s efforts to record and document the narratives of their partnering communities about localised activism and their struggle for climate and social justice.

LIGHT PLACE uses collage as a central method of engaging with groundWork’s photographic archive in conversation with partnering communities’ histories, stories and personal materials from participants. The purpose is not only to collect and collate, but to experiment with how the material produced can be used as advocacy tools for climate justice activism.