AJA Turns 25
1999
The AJA Project began with our founder Shinpei Takeda’s continuous visits to refugee camps along the Thailand/Burma border from 1997. Moved by the stories of displaced youth, he launched the Record of Truth Project. AJA’s first participatory photography initiative where he handed cameras to young refugees in a Karen camp so they could use photography to document their lives, identity, and transition. These early images and narratives laid the foundation for AJA’s mission: to center youth voices and lived experience through the lens of visual storytelling.
2000
Shinpei engages in photography projects in refugee camps along the Thailand–Burma border, working with Karen displaced communities. This experience became the philosophical seed for The AjA Project.
The AjA Project is incorporated with co-founder Warren Ogden in San Diego.
$25 for 25
2001
The AjA Project is established and receives 501(c)(3) nonprofit designation.
Record of Truth project is fully operational in Thailand with a local team led by Saw Hai Nay Htoo.
2002
AJA launched the San Diego JOURNEY Project in El Cajon and City Heights, offering a photography program for immigrant and refugee youth. With early support from the New York Funding Exchange and Sempra Energy, it created space for young people to document their communities and lived experience through visual storytelling. That same year, Disparando Cámaras para la Paz was founded by Alex Fattal outside Bogotá, Colombia—both projects rooted in the belief that youth, when trusted with the tools, can tell powerful stories of justice, resilience, and transformation.
AJA launched the San Diego JOURNEY Project in El Cajon and City Heights, offering a photography program for immigrant and refugee youth. With early support from the New York Funding Exchange and Sempra Energy, it created space for young people to document their communities and lived experience through visual storytelling. That same year, Disparando Cámaras para la Paz was founded by Alex Fattal outside Bogotá, Colombia—both projects rooted in the belief that youth, when trusted with the tools, can tell powerful stories of justice, resilience, and transformation.
2003
2004
Lives in Transition traveled to the United Nations Headquarters in New York, where it was exhibited in the lobby of the famous Neimeyer building. One AJA youth participant (Nick from Sudan) also traveled to Washington D.C. to speak at a UNHCR event, bringing their stories directly into global conversations on displacement.
That same year, the Record of Truth project expanded to include two new branches: Borderline and Karen State, deepening AJA’s ongoing work with youth in and around the Thailand–Burma border. The results were shown in the exhibition at Foreign Correspondence Club of Thailand and Chang Mai University. Back in San Diego, AJA moved into its first official office space in City Heights, further rooting its presence in the City Heights community.
The AJA Project launched Inter+Section, its first public art project. Over 100 youth photographs and stories translated in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese were exhibited along a one-mile stretch of University Avenue in City Heights, bringing stories of refugees and immigrants literally on the street.
That same year, AJA supported a photography project in tsunami-affected Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in collaboration with documentary photographer @masaru_goto . Sandra Ainslie joined the organization as its second Executive Director, guiding AJA into its next chapter of growth and community impact.
2005
Re+Collect transformed the entire facade of the @sandiegomuseumofart with large-scale photographs and personal stories created by youth. The exhibition brought AJA’s work into Balboa Park, the city’s oldest cultural park, connecting museum audiences with lived experiences and perspectives of the refugee and immigrant communities that live in San Diego.
2006
2007
The US state department’s Bureau of educational and cultural affairs funded us to do an exchange program with our sister project in Colombia, “Disparando Camaras Para la Paz”(Shooting Cameras for Peace).
We hosted 2 of their staff to visit San Diego for several weeks, while they hosted our staff Sandra and Bernadette in Colombia. We learnt from each other’s practices and we expanded our letter + photo exchange programs between San Diego, Colombia and Thailand.
Since there was no social media back then, we literally sent these photos and letters between our program with snail mail and in our luggages. The project connected these youth going through the experience of displacement.
2008
The AjA Project received the prestigious Coming up Taller award for excellence in arts and humanities youth program from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Our executive director Sandra and one of our students Nargiz was invited to the white house to receive the award from Laura Bush, the first lady of the US at the time.
That same year, AjA launched El Barrio Progreso, a large public art exhibition in collaboration with Disparando Cámaras para la Paz. The exhibition included a photo and letter exchange between displaced children living outside of Bogotá and displaced children from Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, Somalia, and Sudan who had resettled in the U.S. This project created a platform for youth to share and compare their experiences of displacement in both local and global contexts.
2009
Under+Stand opened at @artsdistrictlibertystation — a 36 by 144-foot public art installation that showcased youth photography on a monumental scale.
The exhibit created space for community reflection through visual storytelling in one of San Diego’s historic sites.
2010
The AjA project launches Photo+City, a program that uses photography to help young people explore their communities and urban identity through a civic lens. This expands the organizations reach and helps to implement a curriculum with a focus on journalism, and social justice.
2011
The AjA Project created the City Heights Photo Mural, a public artwork made of 1,200 photographs from AjA’s archives, transferred onto tiles and installed at the community garden behind the Walgreens on 43rd Avenue. Commissioned by @pricephilanthropies, the project was coordinated by Senem Goctu with ceramic artist @beliziristay.
AjA also partnered with @kpbs and @mediaartssd on Speak City Heights, a decade-long media initiative supported by @calendow that amplified local voices and stories from the community.
2012
The AjA Project moved into a former library space in City Heights, expanding its physical footprint. Built in the 1960s, the historic building featured a striking open courtyard that would later become a cultural hub for the community.
From this location, AjA operated until 2023, hosting classes, workshops, talks, exhibitions, and events that helped activate the central corridor of City Heights in collaboration with neighboring nonprofits such as @uweast1 and the South Sudanese Community Center.
During this period, AjA became a recipient of @calendow’s ten-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Initiative, a milestone that supported sustained community programming and the organization’s participation in Speak City Heights with @mediaartssd and @kpbs.
2013
The AjA Project exhibited the Youth Advisory Council Diversity Exhibition, where student photographers interpreted and documented diversity as it exists in their lives and communities. The exhibition explored themes including “Diversity of Love,” “Diversity of 50th Street,” “Diversity of Crawford High,” and “Diversity of Culture.”
AjA launched Story+Lines, a year-long project that brought the City Heights community together to share collective memories as part of the Irvine Foundation's Public Engagement initiative. Community members transferred their own photos onto wood panels, which were assembled into an antenna-shaped installation. The project aimed to shift how art is perceived, inviting participants to become artists and explore personal and community identity. Events drew over 150 people, fostering dialogue, creativity, and connection across diverse backgrounds.
2014
2015
The AjA Project began a new partnership with the San Diego County of Education and the Juvenile Court & Community Schools (JCCS); bringing visual storytelling curriculum both inside JCCS detention centers and partner schools throughout the entire San Diego county.
2016
Co-launched BorderClick, a transborder digital living archive exploring identity & mobility through photography and visual storytelling.
Since then, BorderClick has shown in multiple exhibitions; including @thefrontartecultura FRONT Gallery (San Ysidro), @sandiegostateuniversity Contemporary Art Gallery, and @sandiegocitycollege Art Gallery, and now holds a permanent collection at @chapmanu gallery.
The archive is a part of a curriculum implemented in schools, and was a Cal Humanities grantee, advancing advocacy around transborder education and community building.
2017
The AjA Project created Flight+Paths, a participatory photography mural and installation at The San Diego International Airport. Participants crafted self-portraits sharing journeys of immigration and resettlement in San Diego. The mural, alongside personal objects on view, honors the hope, strength, and resilience of our city’s immigrant and refugee communities.
2018
Launched the first Civil Liberties Program, using art to explore themes of surveillance, policing, and individual rights showcasing their work at @thefrontartecultura Gallery.
The program looked at the contradiction between the promises and reality of the US remain the same, even as things have changed. The lessons to be learned from the incarceration of Japanese Americans are even more relevant today. We welcome visitors to take part in this process by participating in the interactive walls.
2019
The AJA Project exhibited the work from the Re-Entry through the arts program in partnership with The Juvenile Court Community Schools and The San Diego County of Education. This program gave visibility to the stories of youth who have been impacted by the school to prison pipeline, using photography and narrative to connect with the community and themselves.
2020
The Civil Liberties project install was being showcased, where young adult fellows reflected on the history of Japanese-American incarceration during WWII, drawing connections to their own immigrant and refugee experiences.
AjA also launched STEAM OnDemand, using the camera as a tool to explore. Each class included a workshop box to accompany a virtual hands-on demonstration. Through workshops, students learned about the history and evolution of photography to discover personal and creative transformation through image-making!
2021
The City Heights Youth for change project was happening, the Global ARC and The AjA Project presented a body of artwork that rejects the ways that city Heights youth are negatively stereotyped by telling their stories through art and storytelling. Ten organizers from this project worked to use photography as a tool to visually respond to the survey data collected by CHYFC and the Global ARC around the topics of law enforcement, safety, cleanliness and education.
The Through My Lens Project also happened this year, youth used photography and visual arts to explore identity, share their experiences, and advocate for community change with guidance from artist mentors leading to an exhibition.
2022
Shinpei Takeda returns as Executive Artistic Director, closing a full-circle moment from the project’s origins.
2023
AjA relocates to a new space in City Heights.
Re-launch of counter-surveillance using art to resist digital and state surveillance as a part of TRUST SD coalition.
2024
Become a member of Refugee and Immigrant Cultural Hub and Housing led by PANA (Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans) - a 2 acre development project for refugees and immigrants.
Opens AjA Storefront, a public-facing space for exhibitions, workshops, and community gatherings.
Launches Memoria Terra, a large-scale public art installation exploring memory, land, and displacement in City Heights.
2025
Civil Liberties fellowship program “Language of Silencing” showcases highlights the misuse of Enemy Alien Act.
Celebrates 25 Years of The AjA Project.
2000 -2025
