Exhibition at Yale’s West Campus celebrates community through new lens

By Leah Palmer

Greater New Haven high school students and their families joined Yale colleagues at the University’s West Campus April 29th to celebrate the opening of a student-created photography exhibition at the Campus’ Conference Center. 

For the second year running the exhibition highlights select works from “The View from Here” - the free photography course taught by the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH). 

The course helps local high school students to deepen their understanding of visual art by exposing them to the history, materials, and practice of photography. Students learn the essential principles of taking and composing their own photographs using smartphones or personal digital devices.

“The best camera is the camera you’ve got with you,” said Paul Messier, Pritzker Director of the Lens Media Lab at the IPCH, in his welcome to the event. The exhibition’s 12 photographs were all taken on smartphones, proving that “you don’t need an expensive kit to express yourself,” he said. 

Along with the accompanying exhibition, The View From Here is succeeding in bringing together artists of all ages and backgrounds to create works that transcend “the tacit line between Yale itself and the surrounding New Haven community,” according to Messier. 

Saturday’s intimate event provided the student artists and their families with a first glimpse of their work as framed prints, amplifying compositional elements of color and poignancy, and drawing enthusiastic comparisons with established photographers and celebrated painters alike.

The formalities over, the students embarked on a tour of the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, culminating in a hands-on photo project in the darkroom, where they set to creating ‘photograms’ - a camera-less technique where objects are exposed to the briefest flash of light.

Exposure through The View From Here is clearly having an impact on the students, many of whom are already incorporating photography or film into their college courses. 

“Today, we are a single community, united by photography,” said Messier. “We can all work harder on unifying Yale with the community of New Haven, and maybe that work looks a little like this.” 

The four-month photography course is taught by Messier; Katherine Mintie, Senior Research in Art History at IPCH; James Vanderberg, YCBA educator; and Robert Hixon, YCBA Senior Imaging Systems Specialist. Each instructor helped expose the students to the history, chemistry, and formal theory behind photography. At the end of the semester, the students emerge with a robust photographic portfolio, and deep knowledge about the ever-changing art form. 

“The View From Here” exhibition is part of efforts to increase access to Yale’s West Campus. The photographs are on view at the Second Floor Study Lounge, Yale West Campus Conference Center, 800 West Campus Drive, West Haven, CT 06516.

For more information visit https://britishart.yale.edu/view-here-accessing-art-through-photography