In collaboration with the Haverford Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, PACC collaborators and faculty visited Puentes de Salud in South Philadelphia and received a tour lead by Alexandra Wolkoff, the Assistant Director for Puentes De Salud.

Wolkoff guided them through the physical spaces at Puentes: patient rooms, the on-site medical center, and then through program offerings such as the after school art program and pro-bono legal counseling. On the tour, a dialogue was opened around engaged learning, Puentes De Salud’s work in the community, and how the organization approaches college/community partnerships.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Bursese

Puentes de Salud is founded on the principles of Social Determinants of Health and Social Justice. We believe that community health, wellness, and empowerment result from a collaborative, multidisciplinary effort to address the conditions in which we grow, learn, live, work, and age. These conditions influence an individual’s quality of life and the development of the community as a whole. Puentes de Salud aims to improve community and individual health and wellness not only by providing immediate services, but also by acknowledging and challenging embedded social inequalities and injustices.

Puentes de Salud works in partnership with community members, local public schools, universities, governmental institutions, and other nonprofit organizations to address the adverse structural, economic, and social conditions that profoundly affect the prosperity of this community. At Puentes de Salud we are challenging the idea that deep and long-standing inequalities are acceptable realities within our society. We are not only re-imagining but also fostering an environment in which our vision of equitable access to health care, education, and empowerment exists.
Photo Credit: Puentes de Salud

Jacobia Dahm lives between Berlin and New York City. She will be an artist in residence at Haverford College during the Spring 2018 Semester and will be on campus from February 17th – February 25th, 2018. During her visit, she will visit several classes, participate in multiple public talks, and lead in-depth tours of the exhibition “Borders and Belonging”, a two-person exhibition with Griselda San Martin. The photograph above is from Dahm’s series Journey Through the Balkans, the following information accompanies the image “Those who can afford it and who know about the hardship of the journey north buy a tent upon arrival in Greece, which will save them from many homeless nights until they get to their desired destination. Oct 4, 2015.”
Photo Credit: Jacobia Dahm

In “Borders and Belonging”, photographers Jacobia Dahm and Griselda San Martin work to illuminate individual stories of migration, arrival, and separation. The images direct our attention towards the capacity and necessity for humans to create homes for themselves, no matter how transitory the situation. At a time when population movements are repeatedly cast as economic and security threats, these four projects highlight the urgency of documenting the people who make up these populations.

Borders and Belonging runs from Monday, February 19th – Sunday, March 4th and is open to the public Monday – Friday 9:30am – 5pm.

Photo Credit: Stephanie Bursese

Lead artist and photojournalist Jacobia Dahm and documentary photographer Griselda San Martin lead the students in Imke Brust’s “Visualizing the United States of Europe” course on a tour through their exhibition “Borders and Belonging”. Dahm and San Martin presented their bodies of work firsthand and engaged the students in discussions about the role photography plays in the sensitive political issues their photographs address.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Bursese

Discussion around refugees and immigration often dehumanize their subjects through abstractions, statistics, or hyperbole. How can photography serve as a tool to begin conversations about “the refugee” as a human, whose livelihood is both particular and precarious, and remains in the hands of policymakers? Join us for a presentation of work by photojournalist Jacobia Dahm followed by a conversation with Roksana Filipowska, Ph.D. Candidate, about the ethical considerations of Jacobia’s work photographing refugees.

Drinks and light snacks will be served – Free and open to the public.

Jacobia Dahm is a German photojournalist based in Berlin whose projects are rooted in her longstanding interest in social justice and vulnerable communities. In the past she have worked on stories revolving around the effects of criminal justice on families (in the US), and since 2015 has been documenting refugees along the migrant trail, and after their arrival in Germany.

Roksana Filipowska is a PhD candidate in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Her publications include “In Defiance of Propaganda: Photographic Failure as Shared Ground” in Too Good to be Photographed (Lugemik, 2017) and she has co-organized Service Sound, a database of international protest sounds, which pairs able protesters with recordings of those who can not attend marches and demonstrations.

Photo Credit: Stephanie Bursese

Artist Jacobia Dahm gave an artist talk and exhibition tour to high school students enrolled in the Puentes de Salud afterschool art program. The students took a bus from center city to Haverford College specifically to see the exhibition and meet Jacobia, who was visiting from Berlin. Many of these students are undocumented and along with their parents are reliant on the medical, legal, financial and educational services that Puentes de Salud provides. While Jacobia photographs refugees in Europe, these students and their families are experiencing similar transitional issues.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Bursese