Photovoice Exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum

Arrivals co-creators Andy Bale (third from left) and Jon Cox (fifth from left) posing with some of the Photovoice citizen artists/participants featured in the exhibit on opening night of the exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum.

On Friday night, April 10th, 2026, the Photovoice exhibition opened at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware. The exhibition will be open to the public through September 6th, 2026.

Photovoice is an exhibition that highlights lived experiences through storytelling and photography, using the historic cyanotype process. Designed to engage diverse audiences, the project combines artistic expression with community-driven narratives to illuminate themes of identity, loss, resilience, and belonging.

Citizen artists are responding to the prompt “What does culture mean to you?” through the participatory Photovoice process led by Jon Cox, Associate Professor of Art and Design at the University of Delaware, and Andy Bale, Visiting Professor at Dickinson College. Refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, and those closely connected to them are loaned digital cameras to document their experiences.

These personal images are later transformed into one-of-a-kind prints using the cyanotype process during hands-on workshops and paired with captions written in their own words. Presented together, the photographs and texts highlight shared connections, common experiences, and a sense of belonging, inviting visitors to reflect on both the similarities that unite us and the diverse paths that shape our communities.

Photovoice citizen artists/participants creating their cyanotypes.

“Generational culture”, 2025. Anastasiia Vovchenko. Cyanotype, sheet: 11 × 14 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Anastasiia Vovchenko

Black and white portrait of Anastasiia Vovchenko

“My family and I left Ukraine at the end of March 2022. We had to leave almost everything behind and pack our entire lives into just one suitcase. It was a very difficult and emotional time for us. My parents had a college friend who had moved from Ukraine to Delaware many years ago. When he told us about the Uniting for Ukraine program for Ukrainian refugees, we decided to come to the United States and start a new chapter of our lives.

Delaware welcomed us very warmly. One thing that made us smile was that the school colors at the University of Delaware are blue and yellow, which are the same colors as the Ukrainian flag. In a small but meaningful way, it made us feel more at home…”

Anastasiia Vovchenko

 

Organizers & Sponsors

This project is made possible through the generous support of the University of Delaware Wilmington Partnership Mini-Grant, the participants and staff of Jewish Family Services (JFS) Delaware, the Delaware Division of the Arts, the 2025 Paul J. Rickards, Jr. Teaching Innovation Grant, IT Academic Technology Services, and the Department of Art and Design at the University of Delaware. Special thanks to Jon Cox, Associate Professor of Art and Design and Polly Zavadivker, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Delaware; and Andy Bale, Lecturer in Art and Art History at Dickinson College.

Next
Next

Announcing the Publication of Arrivals Book