The Vox Project
Founded 2013 · Boulder, Colorado
The Vox Project is a participatory photography initiative built around a simple idea: people should tell their own stories.
Since 2013, I've worked with South Sudanese refugees, Latino youth, incarcerated adults, Indigenous women, and other communities that are more often photographed than given the opportunity to photograph themselves. Participants learn photography, video, digital editing, storytelling, and, more recently, how to incorporate AI into their creative process. Those technical skills are a means to an end: helping people represent their own lives, build confidence, and develop authorship over their stories.
Projects last anywhere from a few months to several years, with participants creating the photographs, writing, and media themselves; the work belongs to them - it’s their story. My role is to provide technical guidance, facilitate the creative process, and create opportunities for the work to be shared. The project draws on the traditions of participatory photography and Photovoice, as well as the ideas of Paulo Freire and Frantz Fanon, and grew out of my 2013 practicum, Developing Perspectives: Development through Photography, which explored photography as a tool for self-representation and digital literacy within an international development context.
The technology has changed over the years - from cameras to smartphones, desktop editing to cloud collaboration, and now AI - but the philosophy has remained the same. People learn best by making work that matters to them. Technology isn't taught as an end in itself; it's a tool for communication, creativity, problem-solving, and participation in an increasingly digital world.
The work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, but it has always been grounded in local partnerships and long-term relationships.
Developing Perspectives
Community of South Sudanese and American Women/Men (CSSAW), Boulder
Created with newly arrived South Sudanese refugees during their first months of resettlement in Colorado, this project documented the experience of building a new life through photographs and personal writing. Participants authored both the images and the accompanying text. A photobook was published, with proceeds supporting CSSAW and the photographers.
Nuestra Perspectiva
Boulder Valley School District – Adelante Program
Developed with Latino students at Boulder High School, Nuestra Perspectiva explored identity, family, and belonging through photography and personal narrative. Students documented their own communities and experiences while developing technical and storytelling skills. The project was supported by Rotary and built collaboratively with students from the beginning.
View the work here.
Visionaria's Perspective
Cusco, Peru
Working with Quechua adolescent girls in the Sacred Valley, this project combined photography with traditional weaving practices, treating both as forms of storytelling and cultural expression. Rather than documenting Indigenous girls from the outside, the project focused on giving participants the tools to document their own lives and perspectives.
View the work here.
About Face
Boulder Valley School District – Adelante Program
About Face uses portraiture, photography, video, digital editing, VR/AR, and AI-assisted creative tools to explore identity, heritage, and representation. Developed in partnership with the Boulder County Latino History Project, the program gives students practical creative and technical skills while encouraging them to investigate family history and community narratives that are often overlooked. Participants frequently return as mentors, helping build a program designed to sustain itself over time.
The Vox Project continues to evolve as technology evolves. The mission remains the same as it was in 2013: help people gain the tools, confidence, and agency to tell their own stories. Whether that happens through a camera, a computer, or AI is less important than who is holding the tools.
Special thanks to Michelle Carpenter (Boulder Valley School District), Kristina Stamatis (University of Nebraska), Jose Rogelio Manriquez-Hernandez (CU Boulder), and Emily Zinn (Museum of Boulder).
This project funded in part by a grant from the Boulder Arts Commission, an agency of the Boulder City Council.
View the work here.