A Renewed Challenge for Change: Participatory Media Production for Transformative Change at EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society

Abstract

This research investigates an important initiative undertaken by Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) during the 1960s and 1970s called The Challenge for Change (CFC). The focus of this initiative was to address social justice issues specific to rural poverty in Canadian communities. A renewed interest and revitalization in the CFC principles including a process oriented, participatory (documentary) media production program focused on local, community-based social, political and environmental justice issues. This research identifies a variety of programs from 2002 to 2012 at EMMEDIA that shared many of the same principles of the CFC. The goal of this research was to evaluate the capacity of EMMEDIA’s media arts model to continue the work CFC started with an expanded goal of transformative change – social, political, and environmental. This research identifies the work EMMEDIA has done in process oriented, participatory media arts production and exhibition to facilitate a model for real transformative change.