Students create photographs of new IU BFA Alternative Show

Floral wallpaper peeled from the walls where it once lay flat. Scuff marks run across the chipped wooden floor. The old Middle Way House may now be abandoned, but a group of photography students may change that in the course of a single night.

The IU BFA Photography class will display its students’ work as part of the annual Alternative Show Friday night in this forgotten space.

The Alternative Show was first an idea of Associate Professor James Nakagawa in 1998, his first year at IU.

With each show since that founding year, students have been challenged to display their work in an unconventional space, something different from the typical gallery setting.

“Every year, the students challenge themselves to create an exhibition without academic support,” Nakagawa said. “The work included in this exhibition demonstrates not only their unique talent but also maturity and control over their medium.”

This year, the title of the show is a direct reflection of the content of each student’s body of work on display. Photographs in “The Bloomington Project” feature aspects of the community surrounding campus that are more unknown, Nakagawa said, and are intended to bridge the occasional gap between the community and the University.

Junior Chris McFarland said Nakagawa’s strategy in dividing Bloomington between class members included taking a map of town and cutting out campus. The surrounding area was then divided and distributed to individual students, who were free to shoot in their designated areas.

“It was up to you within your section to find a project,” he said. “As an IU student, everyone knows where the Villas are, but not everyone knows that there is a smaller division of the Boys & Girls Club or a groups of skateboarders that skate up by Ellettsville.”

For senior Jason Lukas, this meant shooting the neighborhoods east of the College Mall. Senior Nikki White hoped to evoke individual personalities by photographing people on their porches.

The Griffy Lake Nature Preserve Dog Park was the focus of senior Kristen Endres’ pieces.

Junior Kendra Wainscott featured the Indiana Railroad Company in the industrial west side of town for her pictures.

“That side of town has a completely different feel to it with all the metal and concrete surfaces,” she said. “No one really stops to contemplate the reflections of a semi-truck or the symmetry of a train wheel, so I tried to capture and capitalize on that in my work.”

Regardless of the subject of each photograph, McFarland said the class wanted to
highlight the community aspect of the city within the show.

“It’s getting out of that comfort zone, it’s getting out of that city we live in,” he said. “I mean, technically, IU is a little city in and of itself. But there are tons of people out there, that work in the university even, that can benefit from highlights in the show.”

Many of the students participating in the show have practiced photography since they were young, and this show is a culmination of their in-depth study of the medium during college.

Lukas is one of two students who will create an installation display for his work. For him, the medium of photography is something he’ll constantly enjoy.

“That is what makes life interesting,” Lukas said. “Things are unknown, and even things we feel close to or knowledgeable about can be reexamined, repurposed and understood over and over.”

The entire BFA class has adopted this sentiment by taking the space Middle Way House used to occupy and recreating it as a display area for their work.

“The space was for rent, and we’d been trying to find a space that would fit the parameters of the project, a space that had a lot of history to it, something that wasn’t just an empty store window or a plain room,” McFarland said.

After discovering the space, he said they were sold on using it for the show.

“You’ll have to walk into different rooms,” he said. “There are different flooring options, different wallpaper. There’s an old fireplace in one of the rooms. And there’s a sun porch that will have work in it.”

The opening of “The Bloomington Project” coincides with Friday night’s Holiday Gallerywalk. The space will be included on the evening’s map, and pieces will be available for purchase.

Yet, despite this potential for exposure for their work, the student photographers still put the message behind Nakagawa’s original vision for the Alternative Show first.

“They’ve had places before that have been vacant and they go in and do an Alternative Show, and they get a renter or become a gallery,” McFarland said. “Right now the space is empty, and it’s in need of something, it’s in need of some love. And we’ve been trying to find a way to help them.”

From viewing photographs taken with toy cameras to simple shots of mailboxes, patrons of the show Friday will have the chance to peek into an alternative side of the town they call home.