Another Kind of Girl Collective

Another Kind of Girl Collective (AKGC) is a media arts collective for and by young women living in displaced, migrant or transitory communities around the world to connect and co-create multimedia artworks. It is a space across geographies where they can express their stories, collaborate, and develop a collective process for their artistic work to be experienced by one another, and on a global level.

“So many girls are afraid of speaking up. For me, the film workshops gave me courage and helped me not be afraid to tell people my story. I hope each young woman is able to express her inner self directly and indirectly, and that she can just break the world, break it all over the place.” - Walaa (Jordan)

“I want people to know that I’m filming from my own personal perspective. An outsider will miss a lot of the deeper meanings because they haven’t felt what it’s like to live here. I want to show the world that even though we live in a camp, we are creative and defiant. I feel it’s my responsibility not just to tell the world that truth, but to let people see it for themselves.” - Khaldiya (Jordan)

Our Approach

In each community, we work with grassroots leaders and local organizations to recruit participants and design an introductory documentary video, audio, photography and writing workshop series specific to the needs, values and culture of their communities. 

Our work is rooted in intimate, long-term relationships with the girls and young women, and together creating a safe, adventurous space for self-expression and artmaking, emphasizing experimentation, exploration, cinematic storytelling, and their imaginations. Instead of using a single training methodology or extracting output-specific content, our collaborative process is guided by the artistic sensibilities of the young women themselves, and the mediums and stylistic choices they find most expansive in telling their own and their communities’ stories. 

These workshops initiate a process of deep mentorship, training, and collaboration – with one another, their local communities, and collective members worldwide. 

“I’ve learned that there are different kinds of power. There’s the power outside of us that tries to manipulate us, but we choose a different kind of power: the power inside of ourselves, that empowers us, and that can empower other girls like us. By making this film together, we are telling each other we are not alone in our struggles.” - Karoli (Peru)

Impact

By working across borders, AKGC facilitates solidarity, understanding and collective power among young women in communities struggling for claims to political recognition, land or territory, and basic human rights. The larger vision is for collective members to travel with exhibits and programs of their own work that they curate; connecting with, teaching, and learning from girls and young women in communities similar to their own. Our long-term approach invests in AKGC artists’ professional development, providing further training, equipment, and access to paid opportunities and professional networks. In turn, these young women apply their skills and experience to community transformation – continuing to create artworks and media, expanding the reach of their stories, and transmitting their knowledge to younger generations. 

History

2014: Another Kind of Girl Collective’s roots grew from our first media arts workshop with young women from Syria, in a netted picnic shelter inside Jordan’s Za’atari Refugee Camp.

2014-2018: AKGC continued our workshops with Syrian teenage girls in Jordan’s refugee camps, urban refugee communities and informal tented settlements.

2018-present: AKGC expanded our collective beyond Jordan through our first cross-border film collaboration with young female artists from another displaced community—indigenous Shipibo teens from Cantagallo, Lima, Peru. 

2019-present: AKGC artists in Za’atari Refugee Camp started their first workshop training younger girls in the camp, guiding them through the process they experienced in their own introduction to visual language and artistic self-expression.

2019-present: AKGC expanded to our third community in partnership with grassroots organization El Peublo NOLA in New Orleans, running intro workshops with recently arrived migrant and refugee teenage girls from Central America.

2020-present: AKGC planning for our first convening of artists from Peru, Syria and New Orleans for June 2020 is underway! As an ever-expanding collective of artists, AKGC artists will come together to curate the Collective’s pieces, exhibiting and distributing them in their own communities and internationally. 

“We use the strength and similarity of our stories to work together to change society. There's so much machismo, humiliation and violence against women. With our films, together we can show people a different life.” - Christy (Peru)