Undergraduate Photography Now!, a satellite exhibition associated with the Flash Forward Festival, is currently up at BU’s Architectural College.
Before I was able to engage with the artwork, I first had to get past a few obstacles in terms of curation and exhibition space. The biggest problem with shows that pull work from a variety of colleges is that they inevitably encourage comparisons of quality between the participating schools. This show seems to do its best to discourage this kind of comparison by not hanging the work of any two students from the same school next to each other, but I still found myself checking the labels. The somewhat awkward gallery space of the architectural school’s entrance lobby is also something of an unfortunate hindrance to the show.
Both of these aspects were of course outside of the artists’ control and once I got past these hurdles, I was able to enjoy a fun and lively show featuring strong work from New England undergraduate photographers. The photos are varied, ranging from the performative,
“Thahab: Three” by Nabeela Chowdhury and “The Arrival” by Cassandra Klos
to the colorful,
“PineApple” by Bridget Murphy and “Untitled #1 & #4” by Meghan Lowney
to the architectural.
“Someday I will Use that Tea Set” by Simone Schiess and “Apart” by Anastasia Dubrovina