‘Nuestra Casa’ photos bring stories alive

Damien Schumann, a photographer from Cape Town, South Africa, was assailed with a lasting and deep impression that changed his life after taking a photo of a HIV-positive girl in Africa, which he later discovered had died.

Schumann, who had been wandering through various countries overseas searching for a more purposeful career, opened his first exhibit in Paris called "The Shack," which looked at lifestyle living conditions that contribute to tuberculosis and HIV in South Africa.

That exhibit consisted of a "shack" or lifestyle house true to the conditions in South Africa that Schumann used to contextualize a scene, and lead to the spin-off "Nuestra Casa" that embodies the same concept surrounding proactivity towards HIV and TB, but manifests its meaning and purpose with U.S. and Mexico border conditions.

"I was making a career out of what was potentially someone's detriment, and pictures of wonderings instead of lives, and I realized that if I was going to pursue this that I needed to do more than just take photos," said Schumann, photographer and artist of the "Nuestra Casa" exhibit.

The exhibit opened Jan. 17 at the Centennial Museum and portrays stories of people affected by tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, mental illness and addiction through powerful photographs. The exhibit resides in and around a small friendly house surrounded by "tenadoras" and was built to welcome people into a different kind of reality than they may be used to.

"Personally my big goal is to degrade proactive artwork," Schumann said, "I don't particularly like stories or content (in) which people read and know about but don't take action upon, because if that's the case then what's the point in knowing something."

Schumann's hitchhiking travels and artistic skills took him across Africa in attempt "to put a face to emerging Africa," eventually leading him into humanitarian work and then resulting in the "Nuestra Casa" exhibit which now reemerges on UTEP's campus for the first time with added technology and letters of support from across the world.

The Nuestra Casa Initiative was first exhibited outside the Undergraduate Learning Center in 2009, but has evolved into Nuestra Casa and will remain on campus until the end of 2012. The Nuestra Casa Initiative traveled all across Mexico for a year, first used as an advocacy tool then as a social mobilization tool, transforming itself from the Nuestra Casa Initiative to Nuestra Casa which will be on campus for a year.

Bill Wood, director of the Centennial Museum, called the exhibit a great contribution to UTEP and the surrounding area. Wood said that one of the goals of the Nuestra Casa exhibit is to benefit this community by provoking action through real life stories and experiences, because TB is not only an issue in other parts of the world, but it also is an issue here in our border community.

"This celebrates our community…the resilience of the people here, but this exhibit should also make people uncomfortable to know that these kinds of things are going on, and people are dying from these kinds of diseases," Wood said.

Students have had many different responses to the exhibit, varying from empathy or inspiration from the sometimes disturbing images displayed.

"It's both a social justice message and a prevention message, this is what is going on in our community right now, this is what we can do to fix it, and what we can do to show support to people who need help," said Diego Davila, a sophomore digital media production major who also assisted on the "Nuestra Casa" project by helping the staff and professors sell themes.

For Yessica Torres, sophomore education major, some of the photographs were very tough to look at.

"It sucks you know because we don't live through those sort of things like that, and seeing other people you don't really know what to do to help," Torres said.

The "Nuestra Casa" exhibit illuminates the lives of the people affected, and brings the El Paso community closer to understanding the reality of disease and poverty.

"This is to show that this isn't just something for El Paso but that people from all around the world that are being affected by TB," Davila said.

Eva Moya, assistant professor of social work, also works with Positive Community Impact (PCI), an organization in Mexico that works towards disease prevention and awareness. She met photographer Schumann at the World Aids Convention in Mexico City in 2008, and became part of the labor force that helped to put the Nuestra Casa Initiative up.

"Whenever you bring this reality to life you sort of forget that you are in Juarez or in El Paso, because at the end of the day you're going to meet with people, people like you," Moya said.

Despite the heaviness of the message behind "Nuestra Casa," there is hope and education to be taken out of the exhibit.

"One of the things students can do is to realize that tuberculosis exists, we can become knowledgeable, if you know someone who has the disease, make them aware," Moya said.

Schumann said in an age overwhelmed by media, constant images of anguish and tribulations are displayed for people at the swipe of a screen or press of a button people have become numb to the realities of life.

"I mean how common is it for people to sit down and eat dinner and watch the news, seeing all these tragedies that are happening in the world and at the end of it they finish their mashed potatoes and say ‘aw, that's bad,' you know? And then they don't think about it again," Schumann said.

Amber Watts may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.