The Mona Bismark Foundation is hosting the photo exhibition An Eye for an Eye, photographs by teenagers from La Courneuve and from Altgeld Gardens, a neighborhood in southern Chicago where Barack Obama began as a social worker.

The program “An Eye for an Eye” aims to help youth between 10 to 16 years old living in underprivileged contexts, to become “actors” of their neighborhood by creating a photo or video project and exchanging their experiences. Upon the initiative of The Foundation Jean-Luc Lagardère and the association “Fête le Mur”, this project was launched in 2009. Language courses and a photo introduction were given on both shores of the Atlantic, respectively by the association “Fête le Mur” created by Yannick Noah 14 years ago and “People for Community Recovery” in Chicago. After this formation period, the French traveled to Chicago in Fall 2010 and the Americans came to Paris on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition at the Foundation. The two associations were united to develop and bring to life common actions. For starters, the creation of a blog in order to exchange every week on subjects such as sports in their cities, school programs, video games, the artist they love or even fashion… All through the lens of photography. Apart from the already cited Foundation Lagardère, this project has received the support of the Foundation Alcatel-Lucent, the French Ministry of Culture and Samsung that has supplied photo cameras and portable computers and video cameras.

After these months of contact and learning photography, the voyage of the youngsters from La Courneuve to Chicago took place in November 2010. The Chicagoans showed their visitors their everyday life, discovering the streets of Chicago, the tourist spots, the museums, but above all their neighborhood and their school. They were also received at a historic place for north American basketball: the Berto Center, the training site for the famous Chicago Bulls, where they met Joakim Noah.

All these events were naturally favorable to taking new photographs, which can now be found in the Paris exhibition.

The last stage of this project will be the Paris trip of the Chicago youth to meet their correspondents. They will then discover on their own turn their counterparts’ everyday life at La Courveuve, the streets and neighborhoods of the capital. But perhaps they will also be proud to find their work hung in the prestigious space of the Foundation Mona Bismarck, during the opening of the exhibition “An Eye for an Eye”.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

An Eye for an Eye
April 16-24, 2011
Mona Bismarck Fondation
34 Avenue de New York
75116 Paris
+33 (0)1 47 23 38 88
Tuesday- Saturday: 12-18H