Joan Sara Klatchko’s photographs portray the lives of ‘Kids Around the World.’
By: Jillian Kalonick
Ian, an 11-year-old growing up in the barren opal mining town of Coober Pedy in Australia, lives in a cave instead of a house. Pedro, a resident of a remote Andean village in Ecuador, is "el doctor," the medical expert in his community, though he is 18 and has only a third-grade education. Fifteen-year-old Azianne, who lives in Malaysia, spends her free time flying kites, but recognizes that the Western fear of Islam is a danger in her life.
Photojournalist Joan Sara Klatchko has spent time not only photographing these young people, but finding out the stories behind their lives. Beginning in the early 1990s, while on assignment around the world, she began to take photos of children, and in the process discovered how global issues that can seem abstract come into play in their everyday lives.
An exhibition of these photographs, Connecting Cultures: Kids Around the World, is on view at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia through Nov. 26. More than just a collection of photos, the exhibition, curated by Ms. Klatchko, tells stories around the themes of home, play, culture and identity, family, healthcare, safety and protection, water and school.
"I realized kids love the stories," says Ms. Klatchko, who lives in Yardley, Pa. "When you show kids pictures of other kids, they’re really intrigued. They have a real curiosity about the world when you tell them about children from other countries, they ask, ‘Do they clean their room?’ Or for older kids, it’s ‘Where do they hang out?’ Kids start to feel like they know them."
Because she selected photographs for the exhibit based on how they fit with themes and stories, Ms. Klatchko says some of her best aren’t included in Connecting Cultures. But the 100 or so color photographs in the exhibition are artfully arranged and visually stunning. "Play" is shown in a selection of photographs of a wheelchair race in England, kids playing on a climbing wall in the U.S., surfing in Australia, school girls running across the plain in Sri Lanka all of them depicting lines of children engaged in play. Every theme includes photographs of children in the U.S., some of which viewers may recognize from a 2003 exhibition of photographs of Levittown, Pa. where Ms. Klatchko grew up at the Michener Museum in Doylestown, Pa.
Connecting Cultures tackles many difficult issues AIDS, child labor, war, racism, hunger but instead of overwhelming viewers, it puts the emphasis on what unites children around the world. A photograph of an AIDS orphan in Uganda, shown with the child’s parents’ wedding photo and their death certificates is sobering, but Ms. Klatchko focuses on the day-to-day problems the orphans face, which might be similar to those of a child in the U.S. The "School" theme shows the ways children in different countries travel each day to get their education by motorcycle, on horseback or hiking, for example with an emphasis on the fact that they do things differently, but are all doing the same thing.
Ms. Klatchko has built an educational program, "Kids Across the World," around the stories she has put together. In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s MAGPI program, children learn from the stories through assemblies, workshops, educational kits and video conferencing. Ms. Klatchko has given programs at many area schools, and when she traveled to the Galapagos Islands in November 2005, two area schools were able to "travel" with her, following her progress online and making contact with two schools on Santa Cruz island.
In Connecting Cultures, the Galapagos Islands story focuses on two children the son of a fisherman and the son of a cruise ship captain. This simple, real-life dynamic takes a major issue conservation vs. economy and makes it something children can understand and relate to. Linking schools in different countries with photographs has also created a connection between children, who often send donations to their peers or exchange letters.
Ms. Klatchko, who has photography credits in more than 150 magazines, newspapers and books, including the International Herald Tribune, Reader’s Digest and TIME, has now taken pictures of children in more than 30 countries. To create a set of photographs and a story, she might spend a week with a child and his or her family.
"It’s a lot harder to get the story it’s not glamorous at all," she says. "You’re following them around at school, or standing in the hallway while they eat." But after 15 years of focusing on children, "You see things so differently I find myself thinking, how would a child in America view this? You can see how things connect."
Connecting Cultures: Kids Across the World is on view at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 3260 South St., Phila., through Nov. 26. Hours: Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sun. 1-5 p.m. Admission costs $8, $5 seniors/students, members/children free. For information, call (215) 898-4000. On the Web: www.museum.upenn.edu. Kids Across the World on the Web: www.kidsacrosstheworld.com. Joan Klatchko on the Web: www.joanklatchko.com