Table of contents
11. Every Picture Tells a Story
This activity can be carried out in a classroom, at school or in a museum.
Target group: High school students
Duration: 40 minutes
Group size: Any number
Activity objective
To show how our perception of other people and making up the gaps in our knowledge influence our interpretation of their behavior.
To demonstrate how broader historical context and image details can modify initial visual impressions.
Expected learning results
Upon completion of the activity, participants:
- understand how our personal perceptions of other people lead us to fill in the gaps in our understanding and interpret their actions subjectively;
- can revise their initial, strictly visual impressions of an event in light of additional historical facts and background;
- learn to interpret individual details of an image as witnesses of the era and to identify important insights into people’s lives and historical processes
Description of the activity
Preparation:
- Choose an image related to the work of the Bykivnia Graves National Historical and Memorial Museum. In this case, participants will examine two photographs of Kindrat Sydoruk, who was detained by the Soviet authorities (see the appendix). One photograph shows him before his arrest, while the other was taken in an NKVD prison.
- Stick these two images to separate sheets of paper.
- Prepare enough copies for all participants. If the group is divided into two teams, two copies will be sufficient.
- Prepare paper and pens for all participants
Scenario:
- Tell the participants that they will receive a photograph and that their task is to write a story about the person or people depicted. To help them, you may provide the following plan (adapt it, if necessary, to suit the needs and age of your target group):
• Who is the person (or who are the people) in the photograph?
• Where was the photograph taken?
• Do you think they come from a city or a village?
• What are they? What do they do for a living?
• What do the interior and their clothing suggest about their status? What is their status? What is their financial situation?
• What is their psychological state? What emotions are they experiencing?
• What unusual details do you notice in the photo?
Allow 5 to 10 minutes to complete this task.
2. Now ask group representatives or individual participants to read their stories/descriptions. Then ask everyone to look at both photographs and explain that they depict the same person. Allow approximately five minutes for reflection, and ask the groups (or individual participants) to discuss and write down their ideas about what might have happened to the man between the two photographs.
3. Ask the participants to share what they wrote.
4. Tell the participants what happened to the person in the photographs (in this case, Kindrat Sydoruk, a victim of Soviet repression; see the Appendix). Then ask them to discuss the following questions: Why did this happen? How could it happen? Was this an isolated case or part of a broader pattern? Could it have been prevented?
Reflection
- What emotions do you feel after completing this activity? Why?
- What did you base your assumptions about the people in the images on? Which details (clothing, gaze, surroundings) led you to certain conclusions about these people?
- Were you prepared for the fact that a physical image of a person can change so radically? What emotions did you experience upon realizing that you were analyzing two photos of the same person? Why?
- How did learning Kindrat Sydoruk’s true story influence or change your interpretation of the two photographs?
- How easily are we influenced by first impressions, and why is it sometimes difficult to revise them, even when new information or evidence becomes available?
- Why can these two photographs, viewed together, be described as witnesses to the era of totalitarianism? What do they reveal—without words—about the nature of the Soviet system of repression?
- How does the personal story of a single individual help us better understand the scale of the tragedy and the human dimension of places such as the Bykivnia Graves National Historical and Memorial Museum than statistics alone?
- How can we use the experience gained from this exercise in our everyday lives, when reading the news, using social media, or judging other people and their actions?
- What is the most important insight or lesson you are taking away from this exercise?
Tips for teachers/ educators
You can choose photos of people who were persecuted or imprisoned by the NKVD/KGB and who lived in your region. It is important that one photograph depicts the person in everyday life before their arrest, while the other reveals the consequences of arrest, imprisonment, and political repression.
Required materials
- Copies of the selected images for all participants or each group, depending on the format of the activity. We recommend conducting the activity in groups of three to five participants.
- Paper and pens.
- You can print out the plan (as many copies as there are photos), display it as a slide, or write it on a flipchart.
Authors/Copyright
Tetiana Sheptytska, researcher, Bykivnia Graves National Historical and Memorial; Khrystyna Chushak.
This activity is based on the “Every Picture Tells a Story” activity in the All Different All Equal Education Pack of the Council of Europe (2016). See https://wergelandcentre.org/resources/all-different-all-equal/