When our stories are seen and heard, we discover our common bonds.

About #YourTurn

#YourTurn asks participants to use the past and present as touchstones in the creation of photography collaborations. Designed to encourage engagement across borders both internal and external, #YourTurn features work by teenage students, photo-educators and working artists from Los Angeles and beyond.

Through #YourTurn projects, Students, Photo Educators and Communities come together to curate their own messages and broadcast them in a way that is inclusive, collaborative and representative; moving away from a single image representing a single voice to that of a collective voice, co-creating, co-narrating and co-curating their own photo stories. 

Current Project

The theme for this year’s #YourTurn is “Through The Looking Glass”. Students will create Self-portraits and Other worlds using mirrors, found imagery and reflective surfaces. It is clear that as humans, we are amazingly interested in our own image. It could be mere vanity but also mirrors show us the passage of time etched on our reflections. Students will use mirrors and collections to reveal and conceal something about themselves while creating other worlds.. They will be asked to express feelings, mood, and emotions in self-portraiture, performance, journaling and photo diaries.

The work of our guest artists exemplifies the use of personal narrative to create images that speak to the viewer and convey complex personal stories and feelings.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya was born  in San Bernardino, California. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Sepuya’s work highlights the constructed nature of the photographic document and the performative space of the photographic studio, embracing the medium’s potentials for fragmentation and connection. In Sepuya’s closeup studies of human forms, subjects are enmeshed in creative, desirous exchanges. Fragmentation is a major feature of his work; he often depicts his subjects in fragments—torsos, arms, legs, or feet—rather than showing the entire body. Sepuya's photographs are sometimes ripped apart and rearranged.

Our second guest artist is Awol Erizku. Los Angeles-based artist Awol Erizku’s multi-disciplinary practice encompasses photography, sculpture, painting, installation, film, and sound to shape an artistic language that exists at the intersection of image making and language.  Bridging the visual and cultural gap between African and Black American cultures, Erizku’s work rejects Eurocentric notions of art and beauty in favor of building his singular Afrocentric aesthetic, something he refers to as “Afro-esotericism.” Rather than convey any singular entity or narrative, he explores the intersections of ancient mythology, diasporic tradition, and contemporary culture through his symbolic constellation of images spanning a breadth of media.

Visual symbols tell the world who we are, what inspires us, and where we have been. Publicly Private will provide the inspiration and platform for teens to tell stories about their inner selves and communities. See works In-Progress Below

The following photographs are by Harvard Westlake Students inspired by Paul Sepuya and Awol Erizku.

Is it #YourTurn? Join us!

We are looking for student, educator, and working artist collaborators from across the country. If you would like to be a part of the #YourTurn Project, please fill out the form that best suits your role as a contributor and one of our project organizers will reach out!