BY ALBIN SIKORA AKA THE YOUNG PHILOSOPHER

Have you ever received a well intentioned but boring mailing from a non-profit that’s easy to junk because it’s so not memorable? And, the non-profit might even be doing wonderful work. Cristina Linclau’s message to these worthy non-profits is, “…using exhibits or media is a great way to bring something to people’s attention that matches his or her passions or beliefs.”

She learned that a person doesn’t have to be mailed and guilt tripped to death to help out a little bit. When Cristina was visiting her mother in Park City, Utah four years ago, she happened upon photos that kids from Sonagachi, Calcutta’s largest red light district, had shot. These photos were part of Kids with Cameras, a non-profit organization created by one of the filmmakers of Born into Brothels, Zana Briski, who was in Utah for the premiere of her film at the Sundance Film Festival.

Cristina was in the right place at the right time and got hired on the spot to help promote Born into Brothels. This was the beginning of a two yearlong ride, allowing Cristina to engage in a collective effort to educate and entertain. She explains how this stage in her life began and tells about some other people and experiences in the non-profit and art worlds that have shaped her priorities and interests.

Young Philosopher: How did the Kids with Cameras project begin?

Cristina Linclau: Zana Briski, who was originally a photographer, went to India to participate in a group show. While she was visiting Calcutta someone else in the group took her to Sonagachi, the largest red light district in Calcutta. She was blown away with what she saw and within a year she moved to Calcutta. She was going to Sonagachi everyday and within a year and a half of that time she was living in one of the rooms [in a brothel]. She gained the trust of the women and with the rough footage of these women she shot, convinced Ross Kauffman to fly out from New York to make the documentary that would be Born into Brothels.
While shooting the film Zana realized how much the making of the film could be geared toward helping the children of Sonagachi. She had the concept to start Kids with Cameras as an auxiliary project and file it as a non-profit, with print sales going toward helping the kids directly. It boiled down to a group of eight really dedicated kids. She saw that they had tremendous potential, and not just as photographers.

YP: Did she choose who would participate or did it boil down to whatever kids would show up?

CL: It was whatever kids showed up. There were some who showed up initially and then dropped out. It was hard enough to get the kids to show up for school let alone something extra. There was also the cultural issue of why is this American woman here and why does she want to teach photography to kids who never held cameras before? The kids who really caught onto it hooked into her reasons for being there. She was offering something to them that they in turn could do for themselves through their photographs.

YP: Did she teach them how to shoot photos or just give them cameras and let them run with it?

CL: Sometimes there would be seven or eight hundred people watching the film and when it was done someone would say, “Great film,” or “Great editing.” And, then there were people who constantly wanted to talk about the photographs. It opened a whole new door to them. There’s one woman who I’m still really good friends with. I just visited her when I was crossing the country [Cristina recently moved from New York City to Portland, Oregon].
I met her at a screening and she ended up flying to four or five other film festivals on her own accord to help promote the film, helping me sell prints or just figuring out whatever problem solving needed to be addressed. With Kids with Cameras it’s the images, the art element of things, that hooks people in. I think a lot of non-profits could benefit from that. For the most part, everyone wants to find something they can give to, something that matches their passions and beliefs. Using exhibits or media is a great way to do this. Instead, non-profits often only use e-mails and letters and they attract people with a passing interest or who [participate out of a sense of] nagging necessity.

YP: How did you get involved with the film Born into Brothels and the Kids with Cameras project?

CL: The film premiered at Sundance. I was visiting my mother who had moved there. The filmmakers, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, were doing all the work to promote the film themselves. They needed someone else to give extra attention to promoting the film and I came at the right time. I became what they called the Exhibition Coordinator. For the first year or so, I was the only non-profit staff they had for Kids with Cameras. It was a catchall job. It was amazing. I was ordering prints and framing them, organizing exhibits, contacting future festivals, gauging whether a formal gallery show would be a good idea in a particular city, and even organizing something on the fly in the lobby of a cinema. We were doing three cities a week, so it was rapid fire.
The film went from something that you had to stand in line and convince people it was worth seeing, to being requested at different festivals, to being nominated for an academy award and getting national distribution.
I had the incredible fortune to be riding this wave. The best part was seeing how effective the growing wave was for the actual cause that it originated from.

YP: Didn’t that feel great to be a part of?

CL: Yeah. It really did. And now, they’re raising money to build a school in Calcutta.
When I left Kids with Cameras it was very much because they were going into this whole other phase.

YP: What people have been influential in the path that you’re going on right now?

CL: Ross and Zana the filmmakers, and Katrin MacMillian. Katrin and I worked together on the IMPACT festival. She had moved from London to work on it and she was so driven and sincere and charismatic through and through.
It is the people you work with who make you want to do the work you’re doing. I think that’s the way it is with artists too. There is the hermetic, lonely artist, but there are also collectives in which people are encouraged to find in one another the things that will motivate themselves. That’s the element I’m more interested in. I don’t expect much of myself without looking out at the people around me.
Other people who come to mind are Liza Politi, a woman who started a program called Statement Arts. She uses non-profits to venture into areas she is passionate about. She was teaching theatre to kids in Hell’s Kitchen and raising money in order to take under-privileged high school kids to different college interviews for possible scholarships in the arts. Then, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita she raised funds to take a bus full of Broadway actors and musicians down to do a caroling tour around different communities that had been affected. I have images of people who are living in a tent outside their FEMA trailer, using their trailer as an art studio. These artists who lost their entire bodies of work began grouping together and promoting themselves in national and international shows of Gulf artists.

YP: How is your life balanced or unbalanced?

C: I moved around a lot when I was a kid. Portland is the first place I’ve been where I feel really at home and I love it here, yet getting here, or even just getting out of New York for the weekend, felt like a Herculean task. Here now, I feel so much more liberated to travel and research ideas for future projects. I feel a sense of balance in letting things find their own flux.

YP: What do you do when you find yourself losing steam, when you just aren’t feeling it; whether it’s on a particular project or in life in general?

CL: When that happens it’s time to put yourself into contact with new people and new experiences to help yourself remember that there is so much out there.
When I lose steam I look for something new—a glimpse of something completely unnoticed or unheard of to me. Sometimes it’s an emergency. Quick, go see a show, hear a song, turn a corner, look more closely. Everyone knows when she is teetering, when she is at risk of deflating, but with this remedy I haven’t lacked steam in a while.

YP: When I get bummed out I realize that I’m thinking about myself too much. I really just need to reach out to other people.

CL: Calling up, writing a letter, being in touch with someone who you haven’t been in touch with in a while is a good way to recharge.