With support from the California Arts Council, The AjA Project will design and implement a program that teaches a new generation of youth to (a) reclaim the narrative of digital images that have been collected without consent, (b) build an asset-based classification system and apply it to existing photographs created by young people in City Heights, (c) learn to expose the harms and biases of AI, and (d) share this project and its findings with policy makers.
The AjA Project has a strong reputation of delivering high-quality, high-impact programs to young people from diverse cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds. This includes in-school and after-school programs as well as participatory workshops in collaboration with cross-sector partner organizations. AjA’s programs support young people to process experiences, understand their social and political landscapes and use the arts as a tool for creative self expression and social change. This year we have provided programming to newly arrived refugees, teen mothers, youth in detention, young people in military families, and youth across San Diego. The work at AjA remains grounded in the power of photography and visual arts as a tool for all youth, regardless of background, to see themselves as agents of change. AjA remains committed to igniting individual and social change from a grassroots, creative approach.

