PROJECT ROOM D

BARBARA POLLACK’s Thesis Class


featuring work by:

Ramie Ahmed, Siva Ambrose, Zhenni Cao, Yu Wen (Ophelia) Chen, Hanbing Jia, Yiwen Lu, Kai Ortiz, Tingxi Pan, Qingyuan Wang, Yuchen Wang, Liyi Xia, Moon 月

STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE:

Tingxi Pan

Mavericks

Whether we talk about weathering a global pandemic or honestly exploring one’s identity, here is a group of photographers who are at the forefront of exploring the most pressing issues of our day. Emerging in the midst of several world crises, these young artists create works with strength and fragility, confidence and curiosity, determination and hesitancy. We’d like to believe that after four years in school, they have completed their education. But, the works on view evoke an open-endedness and a great deal of potential, leading us to believe that we will see more from each one of them in the future.

These young artists are indeed mavericks in that they have each gone their own way, rather than becoming a cohesive whole. That is a good thing, which demonstrates that as they presented work to each other over the course of this year, they were supportive of a diversity of approaches and techniques. The process of inquiry and review went much deeper than that. Often, a single image opened the door to a discussion of an entire history, culture, gender, or sexuality. A single image—a gummy bear, a K-pop singer, a grandmother or a girl in a Bob Marley t-shirt—possessed all the contradictions of recent history and power dynamics, or none at all. Still, this group as a whole knew the power of photography innately; they are image Warriors.

Mainly, these mavericks do not scare us away but bring us in, close and closer, to their emotional states and intellectual ideas. Few are photojournalists, none are on the front lines of a war. Yet their bravery is evident, especially as they invite us to share in their vulnerability. That is the key characteristic that I witnessed in these budding artists this year—vulnerability—which can make viewers (and their teacher) uncomfortable, but is so important in works of art. It is a quality that is increasingly rare in contemporary artists, and so we cheer them on. This is a new direction in contemporary photography and we are rewarded for spending the time that these images deserve.

—Barbara Pollack