Sharpening focus on student photography

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"Aperture," the second show at the College's new Center Gallery in McCullough Student Center, opened Oct. 27th. The exhibition presents the work of three student photographers Emily Coles '09, Angela Evancie '09.5 Brian Korbelik '08 and was curated by Graduate Intern Stuart Hurt '07.

The Middlebury Campus: When was the Center Gallery formed and for what reasons?

Stuart Hurt: The Center Gallery was formed in the spring of 2007 and opened May 24. The Gallery exists to provide student artists of all media (even though we're currently limited to 2 dimensions) a place to show their work. In the past guerilla art shows on campus were curated and mounted by students, and limiting factors like security and finances kept them informal. The MCM of Art and CCAL joined forces to provide a space where legitimate exhibitions could be mounted, giving student artists and their work a bit more gravitas and professionalism.

TC: What were the goals behind Aperture?

SH: With Aperture I primarily wanted to showcase the variety of artistic perspectives that exists at Middlebury. Emily, Angela, and Brian all have very different artistic styles and very different reasons for choosing the subjects that they do, and that's apparent in their work. For a variety of reasons we were committed to a second photographic show this fall, but I wanted to choose artists whose work would be a noticeable departure from the last show so that people would know that the Gallery had changed.

TC: Why do you think it is important to have an official place to display student art on campus?

SH: I think that it's important that as a college we promote creativity and encourage questioning unilaterally, not only in the classroom. "Liberal arts"is an intellectual approach to questioning, and I think that exploring problems artistically is important for a fuller intellectual development. I am very pleased and honored to be part of the Center Gallery, and I hope it's existence will encourage students to explore, take risks, and feel the freedom to ask questions of themselves.