Photography has always had a complicated relationship with truth. From the earliest darkroom manipulations to the cut-and-paste logic of analogue editing, the idea that a photograph simply records reality has never been entirely stable. What has changed with AI is not the question – that question is as old as the medium – but the scale, the speed, and the accessibility of the tools available to alter, fabricate and circulate images.

This workshop by artist Yasemin Elci invites students to examine that history and then put their thinking to work: building a short photographic story that consciously combines human-made images with AI-generated visuals to address a social topic of their choosing. The result is not just a project but an argument, made in images, about what photography can and cannot tell us, examining photography’s evolving relationship with technology.

This two-day workshop by artist Yasemin Elci invites students to use photography as a tool for social change. Rather than focusing on technical mastery alone, it asks young people to look carefully at the world around them – their communities, their environments, their daily lives – and to consider not just what is worth documenting, but how that documentation can reach people and make something happen.

Working individually or in small groups, participants will design their own photography project around a social topic of their choosing. This means identifying a subject that matters to them, developing a visual approach to it, and thinking through how the work will connect with the people it is made for. Who is the audience?

Where will the images be seen? What response do they hope to provoke? What difference do they intend to make in the world? What is one thing they wish everyone could see differently?

The workshop treats photography not as an end, but as a starting point for a broader question: how does an image become an action?

A central part of the workshop is peer feedback. After each presentation, participants are invited to respond to each other’s work – asking questions, offering observations, and suggesting ways to strengthen the project. This transforms the closing session into something more than a presentation: it becomes a collective conversation in which everyone’s project benefits from the intelligence and perspective of the whole group.

The aim is for participants to leave not only with their own project developed, but with the experience of working as a community – learning to give and receive constructive feedback, to build on each other’s ideas, and to understand that socially engaged work is always stronger when it is made in dialogue with others.

No prior experience in photography is required – only curiosity, a point of view, and a willingness to engage with the world around them.