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Nov 9 - Dec 31, 2023

Weston Collective

Mission

Out of the darkroom and into the light: the Weston Collective is where science, technology, and art meet through photography to enlighten students’ lives. Founded in 2004, the Weston Collective (TWC) – a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in Monterey County – puts cameras into students’ hands, enriching their lives by expanding analytic and creative thinking through learning photography. TWC is committed to teaching analog (film) and digital photography to students on the Central Coast of California (primarily Monterey County), regardless of age, disabilities, socioeconomics, demographics, race, or sexual identification.

TWC teaches after-school, summer, and elective photography classes to elementary through high school students, holds the annual Weston Scholarship, offers workshops, courses, and open studio/darkroom hours to adults, and hosts exhibitions and artist-in-residency programs. TWC offers mobile photography programs, bringing teachers, cameras, and individualized curriculums to campuses and youth centers in Monterey and Aromas Counties. Inspiring students and the community each year, the TWC awards Weston Scholarships to over 25 high school and college students from Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties for their winning photographic portfolios. Since 2004, the Weston Scholarship has awarded 447 scholarships totaling over $130,000. TWC was created to celebrate, draw attention to, and preserve teaching and learning photography in high schools and colleges.

In 2018, the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School of the Arts (MLK SOA), a public elementary school in Seaside, California, presented TWC with the opportunity to build a darkroom, studio, and exhibition space at the school and to teach classes to the students and members of the public. Opening the darkroom in 2019 at MLK SOA created a much-needed multidimensional space in which photography transmits cultures, stories, ideas, and emotions through the photographic print, where the image becomes a place of exchange between the photographer and the viewer.

Through TWC’s unique approach to teaching photography, students learn a hands-on skill set that teaches discipline, patience, task completion, and attention to detail. TWC and the schools it serves see a direct correlation between increased educational performance, increased interest in creative expression, excitement in our curriculum and programming, and involvement in our organization. TWC’s mission is to exhibit, teach, and support anyone interested in photography: Participants gain self-esteem, learn interdisciplinary thinking across the arts and sciences, and see the world through a new and different lens. TWC’s unique approach utilizes photography as a rare medium containing artistic, mathematical, and scientific elements, allowing individuals to capture and tell their stories while preserving and documenting their surroundings. In addition, through learning photography, participants gain self-esteem by learning interdisciplinary thinking and technical skills in the arts and sciences.

TWC’s educational programming is made possible through generous donations from individuals, non-profit foundations, and local businesses. TWC seeks to preserve Monterey Bay’s rich photographic history, inspired by Edward Weston’s work, while simultaneously expanding and building upon the region’s photography legacy. TWC seeks to expand and preserve Monterey Bay’s connection to photography by building upon the region’s history by engaging the public, local schools, students, artists, and photographers. TWC both preserves and continues the region’s legacy by creating new accounts and images through fostering artistic growth, teaching classes, awarding annual student scholarships, and offering a space for photographers to develop and exhibit their work.

The Big Idea

The Weston Collective (TWC) is where science, technology, and art meet through photography to enlighten students’ lives. TWC puts cameras into students’ hands, enriching their lives by expanding analytic and creative thinking through photography. TWC is committed to teaching film and digital photography to students regardless of age, disabilities, socioeconomics, demographics, race, or sexual identification.

TWC teaches tuition free photography classes at local schools (primarily underserved), free or low-tuition workshops and courses to adults, hosts openings and exhibitions, artist-in-residency programs, and the annual Weston Collective Scholarship and Exhibition for elementary, high school, and college students from Monterey Bay. TWC has a darkroom, computer lab, studio, and exhibition space at the Martin Luther King Jr. School of the Arts Elementary School, part of MPUSD, in Seaside, California. TWC seeks to preserve Monterey Bay’s rich photographic history, inspired by Edward Weston, while simultaneously expanding and building upon the region’s photography legacy.

Sometimes we never know the impact we have on students’ lives because they learn all these cool things and they go on in life, but the Weston Collective has created a really special opportunity and program for kids in the city of Seaside who otherwise never would have had an experience so rich and so deep and so powerful. I can’t even begin to describe how emotional it was for me to see the Martin Luther King Jr. School of the Arts fifth and sixth grade students' photographs hanging in the Weston Collective Scholarship exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art!

- Wendi Everett