Founder’s Introductory Statement

September 2, 2015

In late 2014, I began writing the concepts and proposal for The Lens. The ideas for it came to me in a steady flow, further expanding the initial vision. Retracing their origins, I later realized that The Lens is a 'melting pot' of my accumulated professional and personal experiences, inquiries, interests and beliefs.

My experience of working for more than a decade in filmmaking showed me that video can not only be a medium of social transformation for its audiences, but also for the actors and non-actors engaged in the moviemaking process - functioning as a mirror of identity and possible alternate identities, and a tool in personal mythology creation and life story transformation. 

While filming in post-earthquake Haiti in 2010, I also was struck by the blatant and severe divide between rich and poor, even more pronounced than before the natural disaster. On the balcony of a posh restaurant in an affluent suburb of Port-au-Prince, overlooking a tent camp of internally displaced people on the formerly lush and exclusive park square, a NGO consultant with cinematic sensibilities and I conceived of a "trading places" short film idea. We envisioned the mostly white and mulatto restaurant goers meeting with the Afro-Haitian tent camp dwellers in the middle of the street that divided the haves from the have-nots. They trade clothes then enter each other's reality in the restaurant and camp. From this idea, role reversal and roleplaying worked its way into the concept of The Lens.

The 2014 Academy-nominated documentary film, The Act of Killing also strongly influenced my ideation for certain elements in The Lens. I adapted some of the film's psycho-cinematic techniques into it such as empowering the non-actor participants to create film scenarios and self-dramatize. Another component of The Lens was triggered when Google released its Glass Explorer smart eyewear in 2013. It inspired me to incorporate wearable video cameras into the project for therapeutic drama and moviemaking purposes.

Until recently, I didn't know of Armand Volkas' intercultural conflict transformation Drama Therapy work, nor much about Drama Therapy, for that matter. Synchronistically, a mutual friend, understanding the similarity of my project to Armand's work, put us in touch. When Armand, his protégé Nermin and I met, we quickly realized that we were each other's counterparts.

I later attended my first Drama Therapy for Therapists workshop facilitated by Armand so I could observe and experience his processes in order to sync my own therapeutic filmmaking techniques with them. During the workshop, one of my roleplaying experiences shed light on a deeper truth about a historical trauma from the Russian side of my own family. On both a professional and personal level, my experience of his workshop instilled even greater belief in me as to the therapeutic power of drama, and Armand's healing facilitation and directorial prowess. I continue learning his signature methodologies by participating in his Drama Therapy training groups. I look forward to his and my continued collaboration on our first experiment featuring the conflict transformation between Kurds and Turks, and the further refinement it will bring to The Lens' processes.

Finally, I've often reflected on the fact that since my birth, I have never known my natal country, the United States, not to be engaged in some kind of international war, forceful conflict and/or "War on Fill-in-the-Blank." Though too vast and controversial of a subject to deploy in this introduction, my awareness of this state of perpetual war, and the resulting intercultural conflicts created or reignited from it,  also became another underlying reason for my founding of The Lens.

Though the predilection towards perpetration and victimization still remains part of the human condition as we currently define it, the admission is also that the roles of oppressor and oppressed are present within each of us. Some may also live with mauvaise foi - in bad faith - pretending that we all don't actually participate in oppression to some greater or lesser degree.

But to crusade, blame, or pity any culture, nation, act or stance isn't The Lens' nor my purpose. Rather my truest wish is that The Lens becomes an alternative means for conflict transformation and resolution, improved intercultural communication and knowledge, and personal and societal healing. Perhaps even world leaders and policy makers will be influenced by The Lens to expedite diplomacy, embrace national and international reconciliation, and even enable lasting peace agreements more quickly than only through traditional talk and negotiation methods. My aspirations for The Lens may be high-reaching, but I also keep in mind the famous quote from cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.™ In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.

As such, we hope that you not only follow, but support our small but growing committed team and our workshop participants by contributing to, in your most favorable way, the transformative and world-changing journey of The Lens.                                    

In Appreciation,

Tamara Gurbis

Founder & Video Producer-Director
of The Lens