Berlin, Germany— August 3, 2019
For Immediate Release
August marks the four years that nonprofit organization femLENS has empowered women to tell their stories through documentary photography.
Staff, volunteers, board members, recent workshop participants and supporters of femLENS will celebrate this milestone with an informal gathering at Oblomov in Berlin on 14 August. The venue will also showcase photographs from various femLENS workshops. Of all the organisation’s activities since its founding, this party is the first event dedicated to acknowledging the accomplishments of femLENS during its first four years and to celebrating all that is to come.
femLENS’ primary objective is to help women believe that their perspective is important, inspiring them to find the courage to develop their own voice through visual expression. The hope is not only to give the participants a platform, but also to embolden women to carry that courage into other aspects of their lives. femLENS shares this mission through workshops, exhibitions, publications and advocacy across the globe.
The organisation has achieved much since its inception four years ago. Work thus far has impacted the lives of single mothers in Ireland, women with physical disabilities in Poland, female refugees in Lebanon and women vulnerable to human trafficking in Ukraine, among others. Since 2015, femLENS has held ten workshops in six countries with 48 participants in total. Some of the most notable of the organisation’s accomplishments to date include:
- A participant in a femLENS documentary photography workshop, Halima Al Haj Ali, was awarded the $5000 top prize in the ChangeMakers Lebanon photo competition.
- Jekaterina Saveljeva, founder and workshop facilitator at femLENS, was invited to present the talk “Invisible Women in Documentary Photography” [click on “auto-translate” in YouTube settings to access her talk in the language of your choice] at the TEDx conference held in Estonia, TEDxLasnamäe.
- The role of femLENS in the global fight against human trafficking was presented during the scholar’s breakfast at the Thomson Reuters Trust Foundation Conference.
- femLENS was invited to participate in Diakonie Deutschland’s travelling art exhibition, Kunst trotz(t) Ausgrenzung (Art Despite Exclusion).
- femLENS’ launched We See, our in-house magazine dedicated to celebrating and disseminating the work of female documentary photographers. Currently, two issues are available for download or purchase.
- femLENS has produced three major public exhibitions of workshop participants’ photographs.
Operating with a volunteer team that has grown from one or two people to eight, femLENS registered as an official non-profit association in 2017 and received tax exemption this winter. To date, not only the nonprofit itself, but also the photography of femLENS staff and the photos of workshop participants have been featured in various international media outlets, including the Lebanon Daily Star, South Africa’s news24, BronxTimes, Basmeh & Zeitooneh’s Newsletter, “Stories from the Field,” and the blog, “The Science Papers.”
Join us for femLENS’ Fourth Anniversary Party
Date: 14.08.19
Time: 19:00-24:00
Location: Oblomov, Lenaustraße 7, Berlin
Public Welcome
About femLENS
Founded as a volunteer-driven organisation by the photographer Jekaterina Saveljeva, femLENS’ mission is to visually educate and improve technology awareness by the most vulnerable and resourceless women through documentary photography, a field made increasingly accessible by mobile phone cameras and point-and-shoot cameras. We empower women to create and share their stories.
Contact: Jekaterina Saveljeva, Founder and Workshop Facilitator
E-mail: info@femlens.com
Website: femlens.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/femlens/
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/femlens/