Sarah Hoskins is a longtime arts educator who has taught photography to students in the Chicago and Louisville areas for several decades. Developed as part of her education curriculum in 1995, Hoskins asks her students to make one image documenting their neighborhood which is printed on a postcard along with a short personal statement. In August of 2020, PCPP’s Charis Morgan sat down with Hoskins to discuss her 20 year long photographic postcard project.
Could you start by giving me a little bit more information about your history as an educator? How did you get started teaching and where were you teaching your students?
Hoskins: I started out near my home at a place called Fleetwood-Jourdain which was an African-American community center about a mile from my house. I did my first program with them. Then I ended up at Marwen. The postcard project came about in that class, specifically, because I had a group of 15 students in that class. Chicago is this wonderfully diverse city but it’s an extremely segregated city. These kids wouldn’t really talk to each other and they were an incredibly diverse group, so I wanted them to document one photo from their neighborhood. I made these postcards–15 for each kid–and they had to write a statement about their neighborhood on the back and exchange them with each other at the end of class. So, all of the kids would walk away with a postcard from each of their classmates. I would put a ribbon around the stack of cards and we would have critique and eat at the end of each session. Everybody would bring in a food representing their neighborhood and their diversity. I had kids from all over. Kids from Westside, kids from Chinatown. They ended up having this little collection of photos and it really opened up communication between them in the end. The idea was to get them to break down any barriers whether real or imagined and to get them to reflect on their own culture and what it means to them. The kids that I still talk to, every single one of them still has their postcards. And so, it’s something I’ve continued throughout every place I’ve ever taught.
Marwen is a Chicago-based organization that provides free visual arts programming to children from under-resourced schools and communities in Chicago.
So it sounds like most of these students were high school age?
Hoskins: I was at Marwen for only 3 years and I worked with high school students there. Then I went into a transitional housing facility for women with children and did it there. They didn’t have a neighborhood, so they photographed where they were in the housing facility. Part of the journaling in that case was about their story of how they ended up in the shelter. I also did it for English as a Second Language (ESL). I don’t ever teach college-age people and a lot of that is because I don’t have a master’s degree. So, I’ve always been grant funded and I continued on that project for a long time.
And were the earlier black and white postcards printed in the darkroom?
Yes, they were on postcard paper. It was beautiful stuff made by Kodak. They were on gelatin silver paper that was already stamped on the back.
Was there a darkroom at the school that the students were working in then?
No, they didn’t have a darkroom there. I had a darkroom in my house where I made all of the prints. It was a lot of work. Some of the kids printed them in one class because we did a field trip to Columbia College. That’s where I went to school and I knew somebody that was still there at the time. It was a crash course. I taught them how to print that day and had them print the postcards themselves.
When did you first run the project?
Hoskins: 1995. Those 15 and 16 year old kids from that first group are all 40. It’s been a while.
Wow, that’s really great. So, what was your experience of that first year and how, if at all, did the project change over the 20 years that you have done it? Have there been any noticeable developments in how you run the project or in your experience of it?
Hoskins: Besides the fact that there is no more postcard paper and you have to figure out how to do it whether that is in print or digital...I still make people hand write things on the back. Honestly, I don’t think it has changed. I think if I went out today and did that program, it would be more drastic. You know what I’m saying?
In what ways?
Hoskins: For example, Chicago is still segregated and I think everything is now more polarized and has escalated so much. I have been spending my time in Louisville photographing the Breonna Taylor protests and now I am in Illinois and Kenosha is 20 miles away from me. Jacob Blake who was shot in the back by police grew up in my town. I know the church where his grandfather was a pastor and I could connect with someone I know who knows him personally. I plan on going out and doing the program again and I hope to work with a group of kids in Louisville. I think that it would be worse talking about neighborhoods right now.
I wonder, in 1995, Instagram didn’t exist, Twitter didn’t exist, social media wasn’t in existence then. It seems like it is a lot easier as a young person nowadays to be connected to other people’s experiences and ideas in some ways. The exchange of information is so rapid now which is both good and bad I think. Do you have any thoughts, since you are planning on doing the project again, about whether that will impact the project at all?
Hoskins: With photos, you think people don’t care about having something in their hands. I give photos back to everybody I photograph. It’s certainly easier for me in some ways to shoot someone an email with the photos. Some people like that. But many people still like to have something they can hold in their hand. I give prints back to people and they are kind of golden. People walk away still looking at this print in their hands. For example, and this doesn’t have to do with teaching, I photographed this little ferry in Kentucky and I gave an 8x10 print back to a guy I had photographed who worked on this one-car ferry. I went back and the captain said “you know, the guy you gave that print to was part of a prison release program and he mailed the print to his daughter who hadn’t seen him in 20 years.” So, I just think people still value those prints. I could have people do it using Instagram and I could certainly expand the program and do it all over the world. I’m not saying I won’t do that at some point. I teach with grant funded programs for the most part and there is not a lot of funding.
Certainly. Your point about funding is perhaps a nice way to bring the USPS into the picture which is under fire right now by the current administration. What happens if the postal service is nonfunctioning and the price of mailing things goes up? Something as simple as mailing a postcard could cost people an arm and a leg. That is an unsettling hypothetical future to look forward to.
Hoskins: That is why I’m hoping to continue the project now. If you were to mail these postcards, even with kids in the same city, you are doing a lot of good things at once. You are helping the postal service and kids are getting mail. It’s kind of great still to get mail. I miss getting rejection letters. I have a file of rejection letters and a file of congratulation letters. It was always nice to go get them from the mail. And like I said, I’m in touch with a lot of my students, and every single one of them still has the postcards.
Yes. Thinking back to when I was growing up, which was not even that long ago, I would venture a guess that teenagers and preteens today really don’t have the same experience with the mail. I remember getting invitations and letters in the mail, having to remember phone numbers, scrapbooking photos that I got printed at the drugstore. Even those things are kind of antiquated now. So, it’s fascinating to think about bringing back those tangible items and re-engaging kids with the postal service especially right now.
Hoskins: I mean, you feel like you are making a difference twofold. I am going to hopefully be part of an education program and I would really like to bring the project to the table with them because I think it has got value. Right now, it is pretty topical. You would have to make the postcards a different way, but handwriting is a wonderful thing in general. I’ve been working in Kentucky all these years and my daughter would say “I could always tell if I’d gotten a letter from one of the seniors in Kentucky because of the beautiful, script handwriting.” But, anyway, it was very much a result of 15 kids from all different neighborhoods who did not socialize with one another. Magnet schools–high schools and middle schools–have changed that some in Chicago. I am not sure about Kentucky, but I did the project with one group of younger kids in Lexington and they wrote about their neighborhoods which were different as well. There was one kid whose parents were wealthy doctors and another kid who lived across the street from where I was teaching. The boy across the street brought in pictures from the inside of his house and the child of the doctors was stunned. Up to that point, he’d thought everyone was wealthy. It’s interesting and you can learn a lot from kids.
Are there any postcards that stand out in your memory?
Hoskins: Zhi, who lived in Chinatown, was a really good photographer. His was of a curio shop and there is a little doll in the background and everything else is out of focus. The back of the card says “look closer.” And Weyman’s. He was a really funny kid and all the girls had crushes on him. He made one talking about his neighborhood where he lived with his uncle and aunt because they lived in a better area. He talks about the turmoil but how he still loves his neighborhood. And Catherine’s. I mean there are a lot of them. Oh, Shirley’s! I haven’t looked at some of these in a while. She was such a good photographer. I am reading her’s now: “Many things happen in Chinatown throughout the day. People come and go. Many conversations are held in front of stores, on steps that lead into apartment buildings, and over many cups of chai–Chinese tea. So when you come visit next time, notice that there is more to Chinatown than just food. It is a way of life.” Then they would sign in their handwriting. Her parents made her go to school for architecture.
Did any of your students go on to be serious photographers or continue that interest?
Hoskins: Well, Sadie is a DJ who is still in art and exhibiting. Maria was in my photo essay class and she has won every award there is. She’s an amazing artist–a Chicagoan of the year. Claire went to San Francisco Art Institute and is an artist. I had a student, Sarah, who is a professional concert photographer. Many of them are teachers and many are involved in the arts. And all of the women from the shelter transitioned out. All of them transitioned out in the year that I ran the program there.
Sarah Hoskins is a documentary photographer, based between Chicago, Illinois and Lexington, Kentucky. Sarah received her BA from Columbia College Chicago and her photographs have been included in over 100 exhibitions. The postcards have been exhibited at the Chicago Historical Society and Southern Law Poverty Center. Read more about Hoskins’ work with PCPP here.