Michael Chanan

Phototherapy—the therapeutic use of photographs—goes back well before the arrival of digital technology, but as in other fields, digitisation has produced its expansion and extension. In the community mental health programme in Lucca, a small town in Tuscany, it is now one of a battery of therapeutic activities, including art, drama, music and journalism, as well as video and an online multimedia magazine. I’ve come here to participate in a workshop, led by Carmine Parrella, along with people from Finland and colleagues from Roehampton University, to learn how it works, invited by Del Loewenthal (of Roehampton) with whom I’m planning a possible video project. I’m therefore an outsider, since unlike almost everyone else, I’m not a therapist or psychologist or someone involved in using these techniques. Read more