Digital Justice Through Community Storytelling.

One of the ways we promote informed, engaged communities is supporting youth and neighbors to move beyond being consumers of media to become producers of media.

Since 1999 Inside Southwest Detroit has been working to develop a vision and practice of community storytelling because we all have stories to tell and the means to share them. For more about Digital Justice check out Allied Media Projects' Digital Justice principles below.

The Southwest Detroiter

The Southwest Detroiter is a multi-media community storytelling initiative dedicated to youth, community, culture, and place and developing emerging storytellers, lens-based artists, and creatives.

If you have submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions, you can reach us by phone at (313) 744-2077, by email at insidesouthwest@gmail.com, or by mail at 8869 Avis, Detroit, MI 48209.

Digital Features | Blog | Interviews | Poetry | Video | Creative | Zines

Photo 101 + Visual Literacy Workshops

We co-develop and facilitate a range of visual storytelling workshops, in-school programming, and mentoring with community partners. Our photography and other digital media workshops support students’ ability to craft imagery and language to be shared online and in print. 

Participants learn about photography and creative process as a “license to see”—to engage, document, and create in liberatory ways. Alongside an introduction to history and practices in photography we survey creative writing, videos, and media as a way of exploring concepts of self, community, and other.

Young Detroit Photo Society

Three youth serving photo programs in Detroit—Capturing Belief, Darkroom Detroit, and Inside Southwest Detroit—came together to develop the Young Detroit Photo Society (YDPS) as a program that introduces youth of Detroit to photography by way of also introducing them to each other and their own city.

With an emphasis on skill building in photography, youth from various neighborhoods around Detroit meet and serve as each others’ guides as they participate in photo-based scavenger hunts that ultimately produce storytelling about places and their time together.

The program supports youth in developing photographic competencies, exploring and learning about different places around the city, and connecting and building relationships with youth from various communities and backgrounds.

The Southwest Detroiter Community Archives

The Southwest Detroiter Archives is a community archive of photos, film, stories and memorabilia from current and former residents.

Archive projects are a critical local wisdom and a participatory community practice. They guide our journey of piecing together stories starting with shoeboxes of lived experiences from under own own beds. Everyone is an archivist, an important community resource activated only by connecting our stories.

Stories are collected in person, sorting through pics and pieces of Southwest Detroit together in community. This approach creates a live, documented storytelling time with visuals, oral histories, and shared space—and guarantees that precious memories and memorabilia never leave the hands of the archivist.

Do you have memories and stories you want to share? You can reach us by phone at (313) 744-2077, by email at insidesouthwest@gmail.com or if you prefer, by mail at 8869 Avis, Detroit, MI 48209.

Some Of Our Past Projects ->

Remote Ally Project | 2020

In March of 2020 Capturing Belief and Inside Southwest Detroit created the #RemoteAllyProject, a place for youth to process what they were going through as their school year was abruptly interrupted and they were forced into isolation by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For 15 weeks, 18 students from Detroit and 6 from Kenya, France, Palestine, and Italy came together with 8 teaching artists to document the moment together while learning about visual storytelling and developing communication and critical thinking skills.

VIDEO: Remote Ally Project Outdoor Exhibition →

Let The Music Play, Vol. 1 | 2019

Let The Music Play, Vol. 1 is a CD mixtape release, DJ Skipz’ first, that puts talent and process on full display in an important volume of community storytelling.

The mixtape includes a zine as the booklet insert featuring the history of the Southwest Detroit Latin Freestyle mixtape as an archive of our inspirational influences that brought us our soundtrack to summer in the neighborhood.

The set was originally mixed and broadcast during the Inside Southwest Detroit LiveMix on Facebook Live August 17, 2017 and is a combination of participant engagement and requests, community conversation, and the creativity and expertise of DJ Skipz. Each mix feeds off the energy and interactions of visitors with each other.

SAMPLE: Let The Music Play - The History of The Southwest Detroit Mixtape →

iSWD LiveMix w/ DJ Skipz | 2017-2020

A live, interactive DJ set to build community and promote engagement and offline interaction broadcast through our Facebook feed. The LiveMix brings people together online in way that they can interact dynamically with the music, the artist, and with each other. 

Started in January 2017, The iSWD LiveMix has been Inside Southwest Detroit’s soundtrack to leveraging digital media to promote informed and engaged community.  
 

See, Shoot, Share #SWDetroit | 2013-2014

In an effort to uplift community-driven narratives we developed a physical and online exhibition highlighting four young visual storytellers from Southwest Detroit in 2013.  Community-driven narrative should be accessible—including being created with affordable and easy-to-use-tools, be well crafted or curated, and available in digital and/or physical spaces.  Our featured storytellers Nyasia Valdez, Rosa Maria Zamarron, Antonio Cosme, and Chris Diegel each used their cell phones to capture and caption images of their neighborhood.  Their works were displayed at La Terraza restaurant in their then-new space on Vernor and Wendell and were also featured online.