Lens on Learning: The School of Visual Arts, New York
I often look up at the sky in fear of recognizing the fact that there are ends to everything. Yet, sometimes, when I see starlight pouring out of the sky, it gives me comfort. There is an aphorism that when a person dies, she or he becomes a star. I took photographs of stars to capture how these people live on.
By: Ben Bookout
As part of our ongoing series highlighting photography education programs around the country, Ben Bookout spoke with Charles Traub—chair of the Photography Video and Related Media MFA program at The School for Visual Arts (SVA)in New York City. SVA’s MFA lens and screen-based arts program started thirty-two years ago with a curriculum heavily emphasizing digital photography, at a time when most colleges and universities were still in the film era. According to Charles, this put SVA ahead of the curve as other programs scrambled to convert to the new digital technologies. According to Charles, “We had an open ended idea that we would not be ideologues; we would not have one concept of what photography was about... we would consider embracing all the possible realms as long as they were based in the history and theory of the creative practice of photography as an art form.” From this philosophical genesis, the program quickly evolved. The department hired several videographers and video became a large part of the course of studies. They now have decades under their belt teaching in this broad style of lens and screen arts, both still and moving.
Smith's work examines individual narratives that oscillate between the roles of visitor and native, pulled from an array of multi-cultural influences derived from her upbringing between Miami, Florida, Nassau, Bahamas, and Jamaica. Smith’s ongoing series "For Tropical Girls…" reacts to a history of photographic representation of people of color by focusing on how identity is constructed through photographic portraits that question identity constructs and the psychological implications of iconography, using recalled memories to create performative studies that reclaim agency in “performing the other.” Presented within contextualizing multi-media installations that use evocative references to plant life, natural phenomena, and tropical locales, the collective work provides familiar points of entry and access to the complex narratives depicted.
What keeps them contemporary
The program is based in history and critique and remains at the forefront of contemporary trends in photography by employing a working professional faculty. That is to say, all of the 34 professors and lecturers comprising the faculty at SVA make their primary living as professional creatives. The model works because SVA maintains a low turnover rate among their faculty, consistently retaining professors for many years. Charles says, “We have more important talents and—I’ll use that awful word—“influencers” coming in here in a week than most schools have all semester.” Traub makes clear that what The School of Visual Arts teaches would not be possible without New York City as a palette. Students are encouraged to cross-pollinate their interests and are given access to 3D printers, laser cutters, and other fabrication technologies to experiment with photo and video in expressive, innovative ways. As part of the curriculum, students also have the opportunity to develop skills in computer programming so they know what is possible and can manage computer programing. SVA offers a two and three year masters of fine arts. The three-year program is for students who have a background outside of the bachelor of fine arts and many of their most well known graduates have come out of the three year program.
City Collage two is a utopic collaged space, combining Central Park, Bronx Zoo scenes from New York and a waterfall from South Korea. This work is influenced by Hieronymus Bosch's paintings. Living in New York as a foreigner, I felt isolated in the city. To calm my feelings of insecurity, I started to make a digital utopia by collecting videos from South Korea and New York. Scenes from different cities combined and became a peaceful and united landscape.
Where do graduates fit into the professional world and how does SVA support them?
Charles: “We’re teaching people to think visually. We’re teaching people to understand that the lens and screen arts—the matrix, in one way or another, everything we learn—in some way can involve the still and moving image. If you're teaching people to think about those things and think about the meaning of the practice as well as how the practice can be extended as a product of our humanism, then I think you have opportunities. It is one of the reasons we’re using lens and screen arts. That says you don’t have to be a photographer; you don’t have to label yourself. You're a lens and screen artist! You can be a painter who draws with the lens or you can be a developer of a program. You have many, many choices if you see that photography relates to everything, science certainly. Look at what we are seeing from space somebody has to understand and decipher, organize all that material and that takes an eye. That takes someone who understands what the image is as well as the science and we have people who have gone into those fields quite readily.”
Why is it people constantly find themselves being mentally alone?
Maybe it’s the complex nature of communication between humans that ultimately shapes our inability to truly be with others. There are those who deal with this lack through aggressively expanding their social circle, but others confront it by holding back and exploring the interior. The introvert’s life is simultaneously fascinating and torturous; commingling profound contemplation with, at times, unbearable loneliness.
With this in mind, these photographs offer a meditation on the universal experience of being alone. They reveal the subtle intensity hidden behind every moment when a person wants to express what is inside but keeps it to themselves for various reasons; It is in these precious moments though that there can be a particularly charged relationship to others. The introvert’s journey is both sweet and bitter.
