Not fights or wild parties but expressive photographs
that reveal common ground in their very different worlds.
As part of an innovative collaboration, students from Boston Arts Academy and Winchester High School are exhibiting deeply personal photos at the Griffin Museum of Photography.
Coming from different backgrounds, student artists in “Photosynthesis III” share their lives through photos of impressive craft and honesty.
The exhibit at the Winchester museum runs through May 18.
Charles Hale, of Winchester, captures the flickering moods of “Known Strangers” talking, listening or just chilling. Self-absorbed yet distant, BAA student Ashley Gordon trims her long black hair with studied nonchalance.
In a series titled “I love you” in Arabic, Deena Corany photographs Winchester girlfriends sticking out their tongues, brooding on a bench or just hanging out. Corany wrote she wanted to depict the contrast “between the geeky fun times and the harder, more dissatisfying times in a friendship.”
Museum Executive Director Paula Tognarelli said the 5-month program brought together 20 students from each school to study photography by working among themselves and with professionals. As the title indicates, this year’s show represents the collaboration’s third year.
“For this exhibit, students were asked to submit a body of work that communicated a sense of self or place that shows who they are and how they view themselves,” said Tognarelli.
During the program, students worked with Lou Jones, a commercial and fine arts photographer whose work is featured in “Final Exposure: Portraits from Death Row,” and Robin Bowan, who documented the adolescent lives in “It’s Complicated: The American Teenager.”
As a result, the students’ photos are technically polished and often sophisticated. Several students from both schools are exhibiting outstanding work that expresses their personal vision in photos with a distinctive look.
BAA student Casey Hudson submitted a series of self-portraits that asked viewers to interpret his changing moods. “My work doesn’t tell a story,” he wrote of his photos. “It’s something the audience should decide.”
Looking outward rather than inward, Dan Pennachio of Winchester photographed chilly winter scenes of bright birds, street signs and snow-encrusted landscapes in sharply contrasting colors.
Rheeyan Johnson displayed her day-glow vision of Boston street life in an inventive series titled “Shuffle.” After taking black-and-white photos of pedestrians, she used marking pencils to color their stylish clothes, backpacks and sunglasses in vibrant hues that make them look like advertisements for the cool life.
Describing her work, Johnson wrote she wanted to create “a symbol of how people do their best to make their exterior more aesthetically pleasing when underneath they are simple beings like you and I.”
As the project neared completion, Alison Nordstrom, curator of photographs at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., and professional photographers Sam Sweezy and Rania Matar, helped students make a final edit of their work for the show.
Sergio Merry created the single most original and powerful work in the show, a digital installation called “Night Colors.” The BAA student, who suffers from Usher’s syndrome which causes blindness and deafness, turned his condition into a window into a darkening world.
Describing his work, he said he wanted to show “how expressive color is at night.”
Set in a black frame, Merry’s installation displays a repeating loop of digital images he took of night falling on a shadow-draped city lit only by intermittent streaks of light. Viewing photos of night scenes slipping into darkness, visitors see a world of unspeakable beauty fading from Merry’s vision.
Merry is just one of several students from both schools whose work demonstrates the value of innovative arts programs in our schools.
Paraphrasing Elliot Eisner, a proponent of art education, Tognarelli said collaborative programs like “Photosynthesis” “enabled students to have an experience that they could have from no other source.”
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