Eleuterio Martinez Ramirez: Doc Photo Exhibit

During the summer, dozens of Skidmore students undertake internships and other opportunities to advance their academic and other interests off campus. In summer 2017, the Megan McAdams-Roldán '08 award for International Community Service, which encourages students to recognize "the value of participating in a summer community service project abroad," went for the first time to fund a homecoming "abroad." Eleuterio Martínez Ramírez applied for and was awarded funds to return to his home community in Mexico to begin to share the skills he had developed in Saratoga Springs as a photographer, physics major and Storytellers' Institute student fellow, with a new generation as he taught a photography workshop.

Find out about Ele's experience in Oaxaca in his own words (watch video) and see some of his students' work below. Ele created a photography exhibit titled Ventana a Mi Comunidad (Window On My Community) of the photographs taken by his students. The exhibit was displayed in Case Gallery from September 29 to October 6, 2017. 

"This summer I decided to go back to my hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico, to lead a photography workshop at my former middle school. The journey was not easy, but the work speaks for itself. I was really excited to go back to my community after almost 10 years and partner with the Centro De Integración Social 28 in La Sabana, Copala, Oaxaca.

"The main purpose of this project was both to introduce technology at this school and to use it and create awareness of the Triqui culture (Triqui people are indigenous people who live in the northwestern part of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico). The workshop was held over two months (June 5 to August 10). During those two months, I taught students from third through sixth grades, with 15–20 students in each class. A topic (e.g., family, community, work, etc.) was chosen for each week. The results are shown here."

—Eleuterio Martinez Ramirez, ’18
(Storytellers' Institute, 2015)

---

 

 

Learn more about Ele's experience in Oaxaca in a video created by Skidmore's Office of Communications and Marketing.