If you’ve passed through the Oakland City MARTA station in recent weeks, you may have noticed new images on display.
The See Our Voice exhibit features photographs made by 12 residents of Southwest Atlanta.
Organized in 2024 by artist and filmmaker Krystle Chanel, the project used the concept of photovoice to empower residents of the West End, Capitol View, Ashby Heights, and students from Atlanta University Center Consortium to share their lived experiences.
“I wanted to focus on southwest Atlanta, specifically the zip code 30310. If you look at any of the public health metrics or data around that zip code, they’re kind of at the bottom of a lot of it, especially when you think about income inequality, poverty, upward mobility,” Chanel said. “So it seemed like the perfect neighborhood to explore what their reflections were on living in that community.”
Residents were given disposable cameras and journals, which they could use along with their smart phones to document the things they noticed. Then the participants came together for a writing workshop to develop a caption for each image, which ranged from straightforward explanations of the photo subjects to calls to action and poetry.
Images in action
Some of the photos highlighted issues that might be considered too small for local government to pay attention to, but that affect daily life for residents, like heavily cracked and damaged sidewalks or broken little libraries in Perkerson Park.
Several residents captured images of the creek in the park, expressing that they wished it felt safe to be able to swim or walk in the water there.
“What was interesting is a lot of the residents were taking pictures of the same things without them knowing it until we had the writing workshop,” Chanel said.
Trash dumping throughout the community was a common thread through many residents’ photos, from parking lot litter to abandoned grocery carts and tires, she said.
The process showed the importance of having “some sort of public platform for the residents to express these concerns in a unique way — where it doesn’t feel like local government is being attacked by some of these things, but it can feel maybe approachable to have dialogue,” Chanel said.
Staff from local nonprofits, NPU chairs, members of the MARTA board of directors, and other community leaders have come to see these images on display. Following the opening of the MARTA station exhibit, some of the residents had a call with Jeremiah Jones from Propel ATL to further discuss local issues and make a plan of action for several concerns the photos highlighted, she said.
“This project extends beyond the exhibition — it’s about resident authorship. So my focus was on ensuring that the exhibit reflected resident ownership of their photostories and community-led action in an authentic way,” Chanel said.
MARTA Artbound and Thriving Together Atlanta will highlight the work through the free Mobile Art Experience on Feb. 7 from 12pm to 3pm at Oakland City Station. See Our Voice photos will be featured inside the Mobile Art Bus and throughout the station for the event, which will also include an interactive mural, guided meditation sessions, and music.
See Our Voice 2.0
The exhibit in the Oakland City Station will be on display until April, and MARTA is providing funding to support a second cohort of resident photographers.
“We’re basically going to do the same thing again with a new group of residents,” Chanel said, and she’s still looking for participants for the next round of the photo project (find more information and register here).
For this cohort, Chanel is looking for people who have lived in the 30310 zip code since at least 2019. The goal is to recruit legacy residents in order to “center memory and counter erasure” as neighborhoods across Atlanta have changed drastically in the real estate booms the city experienced since the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020, she said.
Chanel hopes to have a larger group of residents this time and to include newer voices in future iterations of the project.
While the focus for See Our Voice so far has been on workshops and large-scale, public-facing exhibits, she is looking toward ways these projects can continue to evolve. Chanel said she’s talking to local coffeeshops and community programs interested in running their own versions of photovoice groups. She’s also planning to use this methodology with coffee farmers in Rwanda in 2027.
Photovoice has its roots in global health and has been used as a tool to empower people living in severe poverty who have very little opportunity to speak out, Chanel said. “I learned about it in an academic context, but it can be adapted for the grassroots level.”
The experience of applying photovoice in Southwest Atlanta showed that “the solution to some of these problems is something that has to be community-led. From the bottom up versus the top down,” she said.
