"Looks from the small" is an investigation based on the arts and focused on the fight against social exclusion, carried out in 2019 in La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz, Spain) with 23 young people from 4 to 16 years old, who participated in the summer course organized by the “Centro Contigo”, of the Vincentian Marian Youth Association (VMY), in its intervention program with families. During the summer, the participants had the opportunity to analyze their social problems from the perspective of theater and photography, with the aim of expressing emotions, perceptions, fears, dreams, etc., through visual and audiovisual creation. The project can be considered as a pilot experience to propose new programs that are inserted as alternatives of reflective education, focused on inclusion through artistic education, transcending the limited vision of recreation and occupation of the free time of a summer workshop, already that it is an action aimed at encouraging creativity, reflection, critical thinking and social inclusion, in which the photojournalist Marcos Moreno collaborated.
For two months, the children developed exercises based on the theater of the oppressed and photography, establishing a communication channel that would sensitize them about their reality, also linking images with words and their feelings, resulting in a performance and final staging, as well as a photographic exhibition at the City Council of La Línea de Concepción. The development of an Arts-Based Educational Research (Arts-Based Educational Research -ABER-), active, visual and dialogical, allowed as a result to value artistic creativity to express emotions and stimulate a critical and transformative vision of personal reality and social, using photography as a way for reflection and social change. Some photographs are exposed in this communication, providing a documentary video with interviews so that it can be shared on the congress website.