Focusing on Forsberg
Photo Credit: Bianca Bystrom
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Anique Singer
December 16, 2009
Filed under Features
Photography teacher Ms. Dana Forsberg pats her hair and grins slyly.
“Do you think fathers will marry their daughters off as soon as possible when they see how much money they can bring the family?” she asks. “They will want their daughters to get an education.”
With eyes wide open behind the thin frames of her glasses, Ms. Forsberg excitedly explains her summer trip to India, where she visited for six weeks to teach 20 young Indian women photography. Teaching photography is not a task Ms. Forsberg takes lightly.
You may have seen her floating around campus, almost walking on air, clothes flowing to the rhythm of the wind. Ms. Forsberg is the photography teacher substituting for Mrs. Alison Uyehara, who is on maternity leave. Often going off on tangents about creativity and uniqueness, talking with her hands and forgetting about the time, Ms. Forsberg emphasizes the use of ideas and originality in her four ‘Iolani classes. Yet she is more than a high school art teacher; she breathes art and has gone distances (figuratively and literally) to live art.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Forsberg was adopted as an infant. She grew up in various European countries, including Belgium, Germany, and Holland, always attending American schools. She graduated from the University of Colorado, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography. Originally majoring in English, she switched to photography upon realizing that English studies didn’t awaken the type of passion she felt she needed to be happy.
“I love reading, but visual communications, for me, was a stronger medium for conveying my ideas,” she said. “I use photography to explore things I don’t know about or am interested in getting to know better.”
Ms. Forsberg’s visit to India was a monumental part of her career and development as an artist. After learning about the difficulties Indian women face in finding careers, Ms. Forsberg made it her mission to help some of these women with her talent.
“I’ve always wanted to go to India, but not as a tourist,” Ms. Forsberg said. “I knew that if I did go, I needed to have some sort of purpose.”
Indian women are usually married off at the age of fourteen and have little opportunity for education, especially in poverty-stricken areas. Because there are no photographers in the town where Ms. Forsberg taught, setting up a photography business would be extremely lucrative. A woman would be able to make three times the earnings of a male by photographing weddings.
Ms. Forsberg taught in India for three weeks in May and worked completely through a translator, since none of the girls spoke English. Frustrating as it was to be unable to directly communicate with her students, Ms. Forsberg kept her calm exterior, something all of her photography students, from India to Hawaii, have become familiar with.
“When Ms. Forsberg gets frustrated, she will immediately apologize,” says senior Andie Enomoto. “She seems to feel bad for even letting a little bit of her frustration show, even if it is completely deserved.”
Ms. Forsberg will be returning to India this spring to help her students set of photography businesses. Outside of teaching, she has a successful career highlighted by her 2007 exhibition at the Honolulu Contemporary Art Museum, “Drawn to Remember.” So why does Ms. Forsberg teach in an exotic country, at a Hawaii high school, and at non-credit classes at the University of Hawaii?
“I want to help people use photography as a means of dialogue,” said Ms. Forsberg. “No matter your interest, you can point a camera at something and explore your ideas.”
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