Witness is a long-term collaborative video project that primarily involves immigrant communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. Collaborators are invited to a partnered approach in editing so they have control over the content they are comfortable to share as well as composition, audio narrative, and all subsequent iterations. They have the freedom to tell their own stories, in their own language, and hear the healing power of their recorded testimonies.
With the intention of democratizing artwork, it will be made accessible to a local and global audience through its YouTube channel, its projection in public gathering spaces, and display in free community venues. The methodology will be made available on YouTube through a video tutorial so that interested contributors can also submit to the curated channel independently. In its virtual state, this project will act as a visual and oral history repository of the immigrant experience that would be accessible to immigrant communities, researchers and the general public.
Witness investigates the quiet characteristics of resilience and dignity, power and joy present within pervasive cycles of struggle and the ways people overcome them. This project affirms experience, heals through the power of testimony, serves as a historical record, and sparks dialog in this pivotal time of national reflection.