Professors Awarded Grant for Community Exhibit

Community members use photography and storytelling to document their experiences before the Bridgeport public housing complex is demolished

Highlights

• Sacred Heart University Professor Tricia Lewis and Julia Bates received a $4,999 Connecticut Humanities Council grant for a photovoice research project with Greene Homes public housing residents in Bridgeport.
• The project trains residents as researchers who photograph and document life in their community ahead of the complex's planned demolition.
• A public exhibition of resident-produced photographs will open in August 2026 at BPT Creates in Bridgeport.

Sacred Heart University professors Tricia Lewis and Julia Bates received a $4,999 grant from the Connecticut Humanities to support a community-driven photography project that gives residents of the Charles F. Greene Homes, a public housing complex in the Hollow neighborhood of Bridgeport, a platform to share their stories. 

Lewis and Bates received the grant for their community-based participatory research project entitled “We All Belong Here: Greene Homes Residents Share Their Story Through Photovoice.” The funding will support a public exhibition of resident-produced photographs, scheduled to open on Aug. 13 at BPT Creates, a creative space for visual artists, performers, and idea makers in Bridgeport. 

This project stems from an ongoing collaboration between Lewis and PT Partners, a grassroots nonprofit led by Bridgeport public housing residents (visit CT Mirror for more information on the nonprofit). This research collaboration began in 2023 with resident-facilitated surveys in the Greene Homes. Their efforts now culminate in a photovoice project, a participatory action research method that empowers community members to use photography, narration, and discussion to document and communicate their lived experiences. This summer, eight Greene Homes residents came together as participant-researchers, attending weekly in-person sessions at a local Bridgeport community center.  Participant researchers photographed life in their community, then shared and analyzed their images as a group, identifying the themes that mattered most to them. 

According to the Bridgeport Housing Authority, Greene Homes is expected to be demolished in the coming years, leaving more than 720 residents facing relocation.

“The community that is there is at risk of being lost,” Lewis said. “The goal of this project is to give residents a platform to share and amplify their experiences. They can talk about what community means to them and voice their concerns about current living conditions.” 

Lewis said the project ensures residents’ voices are part of the conversation before decisions are made about their future. The Connecticut Humanities grant supports projects that preserve and amplify the stories, history and culture of Connecticut communities.

The exhibition will allow public housing residents, local policymakers, public housing officials, and members of Bridgeport's academic community to engage directly with the exhibit creators. The goal is to ensure Greene Homes residents’ voices are heard by decision-makers and the broader public at a critical moment in the community's history.

“What makes this project powerful is that it begins and ends in Bridgeport,” Lewis said. 

“Bridgeport residents conducted the research, took the photographs, and now they can share their stories with their city.

“The project gives community members agency in how they are represented and commemorated,” Bates noted. “Community members tied the living archives they were creating with their photos to the archival documents at Bridgeport library; identifying connecting historical themes through the decades.”

The exhibit will be on display at BPT Creates Aug. 13-16, after which it will move to the Bridgeport Public Library’s History Center. Opening weekend events include discussions with the researchers and a panel with former residents of previously demolished sites. An academic panel will take place in September at the library with local experts on public housing and gentrification. 

Photo credit: Gary Pivot of Pivot Language Media