In Search of Lost Time: 2017 Alumni Exhibition

How has the act of remembering—and forgetting—been transformed in the digital age?

Photography’s relationship with the concept of memory stretches its entire history and includes its every iteration. Only now has the distribution of photography exploded with newfound ubiquity, ushering in a paradigm shift that bears semblance to that of the Gutenberg press. Photography’s various forms have converged onto a point of accessibility where what was once a luxury is now a presupposition. As the degrees of separation between people decrease, so do those between past, present, and future. To remember is to engage with all three, and to create is to make them tangible. The collective consciousness of humankind speaks a visual language, and photography is poised, now more than ever, to upend the very notion of what it means to create.

The International Center of Photography is a place where tradition and progress have found a way to coexist—informing the other and hybridizing in powerful ways. This exhibition gathers the work of artists from 10 of its full-time educational program graduating classes and is culled from completed, new, and evolving projects to pose the question: within the context of an evolving and transformative landscape of photographic practice, how has our perception of the concept of memory changed, and how will it continue to change?

This exhibition was curated by Miles Goscha (GS 2016), Mohamed AlMannai (DOC 2016), and Mengwen Cao (NMN 2016/DOC 2017).

Featured Artists

Kinuko Esther Asano (DOC 2017), Maria Bilbao•Herrera (GS 2012), Sarah Blesener (DOC 2016) & Cédric von Niederhäusern (DOC 2016) with Robert Langellier, Camilla Cerea (DOC 2014), Jeri Coppola (GS 1989), Marjolaine Gallet (GS 2013), Kasia Gumpert (MFA 2014), Jhe Ming Hsu (GS 2013), Ivana Larrosa (MFA 2016), Paula Lombardi (GS 2016), Stacy Mehrfar (GS 2002), Caterina Miani F. (GS 2016), Heather M. O'Brien (GS 2009), Un-hee Park (GS 2010), Louise Prévert (GS 2013), Laís Pontes (GS 2011), Verónica Puche (MFA 2016), David B. Smith (MFA 2007), Daniel Temkin (MFA 2012), Eliso Tsintsabadze (GS 2016) & Pavel Filkov (GS 2016).