From March 31 to April 30, the Tremaine Art Gallery is showcasing Housed/Altered, a combination of two photography exhibitions by 17 BIPOC artists from The Center for Photography at Woodstock’s (CPW) Artists in Residence program (AIR).  Both series explore themes of feminism, race, sexuality, human relationships, basic rights, and belonging in society. Having worked with the CPW on previous occasions, Mr. Greg Lock, director of photography, film, and related media and Ms. Sarah Anderson Lock, former arts administrator, collaborated to curate these two collections pulled from their AIR program. 

CPW offers seven residencies per year to BIPOC photographers in addition to one for a curator, scholar, or critic. Artists are given access to facilities, technical support, and a supportive environment to fully immerse themselves in their creative work. For most of these artists, it is their first residency program and a time for them to work free of their day-to-day obligations. 

The images from House were all taken in CPW’s studio where various visiting photographers worked during their artists in residence sessions. These works share the common background of the studio but also highlight each artist’s personal expression. In Self Portrait After, photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya portrays himself in the space looking over his work. Another image, Celda #12 by Alma Leiva shows a studio styled like a still life with religious images and a floor covered deep with origami folded newspapers. 

The CPW artists in residence are encouraged to take risks and explore their process during their residency. The Altered images highlight works that experiment with process, materials, concept or scale. One of the aims of the AIR program is to give artists freedom to work on their craft as well as to set new goals for their work going forward. 

Each of the pieces in the exhibition convey the importance of identity and perspective. One image, Untitled, by Motohiro Takeda, was produced with a camera obscura, a darkened room with a small lens through which an inverted image is projected. Takeda’s image portrays an intensely dark, almost black setting. One’s eye has to study the image to be able to see the outline of a dark storage room. 

In the following weeks, all photography classes will visit the exhibition for discussions and critique. Mr. Lock’s Digital Media class helped to set up the exhibit. Jerry Qiao ’22 said, “I found the untitled image [by Takeda] particularly thought provoking as it quite literally required one to move around and shift perspective in order to examine the image more deeply.” Mr. Lock elaborated on this idea stating, “ I hope [the community] will wander in and try to figure out what messages the artists are trying to convey. One should not take what the pieces provide at face value; the different photographs should warrant different reactions from different students.” 

The exhibition officially opened on Saturday April 2 with a reception held in the gallery for the Hello Hotchkiss dinner for BIPOC parents of prospective students and current students.