Student Portraits and Reimagined Histories reveals the presence and experiences of contemporary students at California State University, Chico. The project reimagines the history of higher education, generating new stories and portraits that revise the homogenous historical record of the past. Interweaving photographs from multiple sources including the university archive, tintype portraiture from the artist, and archives of the student portrait subjects, this project makes visible Chico’s diverse academic community today.
Invented in 1851, the wet plate collodion process I use to photograph students at California State University, Chico predates the history of the college (State Normal School at Chico, 1889). These wet plate collodion portraits firmly place contemporary student subjects—from communities historically underserved—into the histories of the college. When combined with contemporary subjects, the aesthetic of this antique photographic process bridges time and space, evading historical orientation so that new stories may be created, and history retraced.
Student Portraits and Reimagined Histories gives its subjects multiple frequencies for representing themselves and their experience in academia. The wet plate collodion process represents a time in photographic history when people of color often had no control over how they were portrayed visually. In addition to the tintype portrait of each subject on campus, students selected a portrait of themselves from their personal archive that they most admire. Aware of the silence contained within a portrait, each student was also asked to write about their college experience. These writings were read aloud, recorded, and presented beside each students’ tintype portrait. Within these layers of representation richer more complex stories can be told about the community at California State University, Chico. One may begin to identify shared anxieties, collective experiences, and bittersweet lessons.
University Gallery, California State University, Chico, 2023
