Photography Exhibition “Pops The Bubble” By Showcasing Student Work

By: Mariam Ismail
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For the first time at AUC, photography students will have their work featured in an exhibition titled “Pop The Bubble”, which opened its doors at the Photographic Gallery on April 22.

Co-curated by Assistant professor of Photography in the Department of Journalism and Media Communication (JRMC) Ronnie Close and his Teaching Assistant and Masters student Frank Barscheck,  the exhibition features the work of six students, four of whom are enrolled in his Photography Foundations Course, and two of which are recent graduates.

“The exhibition is an opportunity to show the potential of students’ work in the best possible way and the gallery offers a really unique possibility. Hopefully, this will inspire future students to work hard,” said Close.

Engy Moheb, Mariam Ismail, Maryam El Bayady, Nadine Fayed,  were selected as for the exhibition from the current class. Hana Gamal and Kanzy Mahmoud are recent graduates who also contributed to the exhibition with works produced after their graduation.

The exhibition brings together their works, despite each bearing a different theme.

“I just really tried to select works reflecting students trying really hard to make something happen and putting a lot of effort into it. Works that represented a genuine, honest and impressive attempt at creating photographic projects,” said Close.

El Bayady, for example, focused on the inevitability of change.

She merges pictures from her childhood with more recent photos of herself in the same place to create a feeling of nostalgia, blurred, like the photo.

The viewer is immediately seized by a sense of anticipation; her younger self fading into the photo like a ghost.

“It is a reflection of my experiences; things that I never thought I would share are now manifesting in my work and that, I think is the most fulfilling part of all,” said El Bayady.

Fayed portrayed their dreams of becoming guitarists, princesses and football players by giving them gleaming new props that contrast their worn-out clothes; the juxtaposition creating a link between reality and imagination.

Gamal’s work dealt with capturing the Egyptian reality. She is a street photographer who tries approaches subjects and captures their aura in her pictures.

In the gallery, Close highlighted how her use of Instagram upped her career as a photographer and made her a name in the field.

Ismail’s project focuses on subverting the limitations imposed on Arab women by creating unsettling images through the play of light and shadow of marginalized and disregarded women, who managed to find their voice through the things that silenced them in the first place.

Tackling religion, orientalism and Arab customs as three structures of oppression, her work features women, who look definitely into the camera, visibly resisting their situation.

These women challenge the expectation that women should remain passive and accept their realities.

“I love the fact that you had to look into the photos to get them, to see that [in Ismail’s] photos, for example, it’s a person and it’s a girl,” Economics Junior Habiba Badr told The Caravan.

Class politics come to the light in Mahmoud’s project, which features shots of working class men and women  in the Fifth Settlement in the foreground, with objects of wealth, like luxury cars and large villas, looming in the background.

Her project shows the parallel existence of the working class and the bourgeoisie, who despite living in different worlds, walk the same streets.

Moheb’s photographs discuss gender as a social construct. She uses photomontage to overlap photos of a male with female characteristics, and vice versa, to create a new subject that highlights the fluidity between genders.

“Gender equality has always been something that I’m very passionate about so to be able to share that with people through my art is such a privilege,” Moheb told The Caravan.

Put side by side, these works explore several social problems and stigmas, emotional transitions, empowerment and issues of equality through photographs rich in composition and creativity, the effect of which will only be enhanced after they are blown up in size, put in frames and hung in a space that adds to their visual appeal.

“I had the exact same feeling I get when I look at paintings in museums; I was astonished,” Graphic Design Junior Mariam Youssef told The Caravan.

The exhibition is set up in collaboration with Beit El Sura (House of the Photograph), a photography organization in Cairo set up by Ahmed Hayman, award winning Egyptian photographer, who will be holding an event on May 9 during assembly.

Students will also be offered the opportunity to set up an appointment with Close, Gamal and Adjunt Professor of Photography Aladin Abd Elnaby, who will be hosting a “Portfolio Review” on May 5 at the Photographic Gallery to offer advice to students seeking to develop their photography skills.