From January 9th to 15th, 2022, Rzeszów became the meeting point for 25 young people from Poland, Hungary, Portugal and the Czech Republic. The project that brought them together – Youth in Lens – gave them a camera, a brief and a question worth sitting with: what does the world look like through your eyes, and what do you want it to look like instead?
Photography was the medium, but the real subject was the issues young people face today, mapped against the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Inequality, climate change, human rights – problems that can feel abstract until someone frames them in a single image and stands in front of a room to explain why they chose that moment.
The week opened with team-building activities and a quest through Rzeszów's main landmarks – a practical way to break the ice and give 25 strangers from four countries a shared experience before the serious work began. The city itself became the first point of connection.
Photography training followed, led by a professional photographer. Participants worked through the fundamentals – composition, light, intention – and then went further. The exchange didn't stop at technical skills. Workshops covered the ethics of photography, media manipulation and the power images hold in advertising and journalism. By the time participants picked up their cameras for their personal projects, they understood that a photograph is never just a photograph.
The core of the project came through workshops focused on global and local challenges and human rights. Each participant developed a single photograph built around a specific world problem – conceived, shot, edited and framed with guidance from INPRO's long-term volunteers. The process was deliberate and the results showed it.
The week ended with a public exhibition at Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, one of Rzeszów's most respected art galleries, in the city centre. Each photographer presented their work to visitors, walking them through the thinking behind the image and its connection to the issue it addressed. The vernissage drew genuine interest from the local community and opened up conversations about visual storytelling that extended well beyond the gallery walls.
Youth in Lens was organised by INPRO in partnership with Associação Nó Górdio from Portugal, Dům dětí a mládeže Horažďovice from the Czech Republic, and KÖZ-Pont Ifjúsági Egyesület from Hungary.
The project was co-financed by the Erasmus+ Programme.
