Forty-five students who are studying A-level photography at Hautlieu will be working on the Masterplan project, a community arts and education initiative based around the theme of the future of St Helier.
The budding photographers will be tasked with producing a 48-page newspaper supplement, of which 13,000 copies will be printed and inserted into a daily edition of the JEP to be distributed in September.
The newspaper design will also become a street art installation on the hoarding of the construction of the Jersey International Finance Centre on the Esplanade. The students will be working in collaboration with States-owned developer the Jersey Development Company, Camerons, the Jersey Evening Post, the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive, Archisle: The Jersey Contemporary Photography Programme and the Masterplan project.
As part of the project the students will attend talks by local photo-archivists and historians to give them inspiration. They will then go on to research historical town records and explore specific areas, streets and neighbourhoods in St Helier for their own photographic work.
Finally, the student’s images will be edited and used to develop the pages ready for the printing of the newspaper.
The Masterplan project began as a collaboration between Martin Toft and Gareth Syvret at Archisle: The Jersey Contemporary Photography Programme. Mr Toft and Mr Syvret wanted to tell the story of Jersey’s economic growth and development in the 20th and 21st centuries through photography, film and archival research.
Mr Toft said: ‘When we began to work on the Masterplan project in 2015 we always envisioned an opportunity to collaborate, and with the idea of producing a newspaper we wanted to provide an opportunity for young people to explore and experience diverse areas of town using photography as a tool to communicate how they feel about the future of
St Helier.’
