2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageSafe Spaces, Powerful Stories: LGBTQ+ Photographic Storytelling & Alice Austen
Zoë Tirado
Friday, March 20 - 4:00PM to 5:00PM
Atlanta 1
This presentation will review how the Alice Austen House's LGBTQ+ Photographic Storytelling Program seeks to use photography to share Austen's story while offering teens a space to tell their own stories.
The Alice Austen House partners with local schools to explore the pioneering work and radical life of 19th-century photographer Alice Austen, who defied the conventions of her time by challenging traditional gender roles and capturing intimate moments of same-sex companionship through her lens. Taking place over three 6-week sessions with GSA clubs, the program provides students with a unique opportunity to examine how photography can be both a historical record and a form of personal and political expression.
Seen more broadly, the young LGBTQ+ community is in crisis across the US. The CDC reports that suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24. LBGTQ+ youth seriously contemplate suicide at almost 3 times the rate of heterosexual youth, and LGBTQ+ youth are almost 5 times as likely to have attempted suicide.
Led by professional teaching artists, students learn to analyze the visual language of photography—studying composition, symbolism, and storytelling—while gaining hands-on experience using museum-provided black-and-white film cameras. They also conduct oral history interviews and create photographic zines, drawing connections between personal narratives and broader themes of identity, community, and resistance.
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