Moving in My World: From School PE to Participants-Centered Art Exhibitions

Abstract

To address persistent health and physical activity issues, listening to the opinions and needs of a diverse population should be at the forefront of a social justice agenda. This article examines how a participant-centered photo exhibition, as the culmination of a two-year-long visual participatory research project, provided a site of public pedagogy for the audience to be acculturated around issues of ethnically diverse young people’s physical activity. Drawing from constructivist theory, I first present ethnically diverse young people as “experts of their own lives” and as active agents in their self-expression of their embodiments. I then demonstrate how young people’s visual narratives created alternative visions to media-driven body ideals, and to current schooling practices of body control and regulation. Last, I consider the benefits and limitations of organizing a photo exhibition as a pedagogical means to disseminate research findings to a larger audience, beyond the “academic monopoly,” for social change.