Luca Faccio, one of the founders of PlanetNext and a professional photographer, is launching in early July the project “Schoepfwerk without words“, a series of 35 photography workshops distributed between now and summer 2012 in Vienna, Austria.

The project, born of the cooperation between PlanetNext, the NGO ARGE and the Association of the Youth centers of the City of Vienna, revolves around life in the Schoepfwerk, one of Vienna’s most multi-ethnic neighbourhoods, and is meant to show the power of art in promoting social dialogue and integration. The participants are children and adults from the many different backgrounds which coexist, sometime with difficulty, in Schoepfwerk.

“Through the photolenses you can focus in on reality, learning to see also what normally escapes us,” Faccio says, suggesting that a hightened artistic sensibility can help to overcome cultural misunderstandings. This is the third such course run by Faccio. It has been proven in the past two runnings (2004 and 2008), he says, that “through photography and related group discussions, it is possible to broach issues which in other contexts often lead to conflict; photography, a powerful language without words, does contribute to bring people together.”

In the summer of 2012, the best works will be shown in an exhibition and, between now and then, each month one photo will be selected and put on display in several Vienna metro stations.

For more info:
www.jugendzentren.at
www.bassena.at