You are here. It is a common phrase usually posted next to a dot to denote your location on a map.
It is also the name of a three-day group photography exhibition put on by the School of Art at the Tempe campus Step Gallery. The exhibition ends Wednesday.
“Photography to me is like a record of a memory,” exhibit curator Ellin Aldana said in a statement. “Often I feel as though I am looking into a different place, a different world, sometimes cruel but often the truth.”
Aldana, a museum studies senior, said she wanted her viewers to become aware and gain interest of the many places the world has to offer. Also, she wanted to instill a desire to travel internationally, explore and keep an open mind to cultural differences throughout the world.
“I chose photography as the medium for this show because of its ability to freeze and relive a moment in time,” Aldana said. “I thought of the concept and gathered the art that would best fit the show’s message.”
Journalism senior Chelsea Smith is one student featured in the You Are Here exhibit. She participated in the Go Global Photo Contest through ASU and placed third with her photograph that was taken while studying abroad.
Aldana chose Smith’s photograph for the gallery because it promoted the essence of what You Are Here is with international travel and cultural awareness.
Smith’s photograph captures a busy street in China with several hundred paper lanterns hanging from wires and illuminating the sky.
“The picture was taken in Beijing, China, in this more localized street that my professor said was called Ghost Town,” Smith said.
Although she was skeptical that she would be able to capture the beauty of the Chinese culture in ‘Ghost Town,’ she soon found that her professor was right in being adamant about staying instead of visiting another part of the city. She then captured an award-winning picture.
Journalism junior Blake Wilson was another featured artist in the exhibition. He also found himself inspired while in China at the 798 Art District in Beijing where he photographed a man through vibrant red partitions. The man is sitting on display, painted and dressed in all white. The red partitions are seen as a symbolic contrast in the Chinese culture where red symbolizes good luck, and white the color of death and mourning.
“Events such as You Are Here can stimulate international travel,” Wilson said. “For instance, any time I come across an intriguing image of a place I’ve never been to before, I put a visit to that place on my bucket list.”
Wilson feels that seeing the photography of others inspires him to keep traveling to international destinations. He also has a theory on the importance of photography in other mediums.
“This is why brochures don’t describe the places only through words,” he says.
Through the use of photographs like those of Wilson and Smith, You Are Here’s creator Aldana hopes to inspire many others to travel internationally so they may read those words in many different languages as they roam the streets of the world.
Reach the reporter at jasmine.barta@asu.edu
Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
