It is often difficult to imagine a fellow student’s experiences in another country. Only through the photographic medium can these experiences come to life.
From Oct. 10 to 29, “Views In—Undergraduates Photograph a Year in East and Southeast Asia” presents 25 photographs that were chosen by the Columbia University Photography Society in order to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and its involvement on campus.
Taking place on the fourth floor of the School of International and Public Affairs building, the show features works chosen because of their depictions of some element of East and Southeastern Asian life as seen by students who traveled in the region during the past year.
These individual photographs provide snapshots of different moments that together form a single image of life in Asia during the course of one year. The show is arranged very well visually—the photographs are in color and are hung evenly.
The photographs depict a place that is not New York City or the daily life of a New York audience. While this exotic factor may draw in some viewers, these photographs sustain audience interest because, individually, they are very arresting. The show is diverse both in the material that it presents and in the artists that it features.
Of particular note are several photographs on the front and center walls. One photograph by Cristina Vuong,CC ‘09 depicts a crumbling, red brick farmhouse that seems charming, except for the bright blue banner strung across the building advertising “success in English, success in life.” The banner is utterly sinister in that it shows a country house that promises a goal as something that can be a means by which people choose to leave behind their rural villages and trade them in for urban areas—English speaking, in this case.
Another photograph by Shaowei Wang,BC ‘13 entitled “Moment of Nature” presents the opposite of this photo with a photograph of nature—a girl feeding a deer—that takes place in an urbanized park. This depiction conversely shows an element of the rural that has been attached onto the urban.
The strength of this show can be summed up in the cover photograph that was chosen to represent it. The image “Window Cleaning” by Derek Hou, portrays construction workers hanging from pink, tinted windows while a man in the shadows strolls by. This photograph, in a sense, could take place anywhere. However, the photograph is also deeply unique. It shows a single moment, in a single place, in a single time—far removed from our everyday experiences. As such, it is completely individual. This show grants small glimpses of the individual and unique, while combining them to create the universal.
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