It would be hard to find a Bowdoin student who would find reading a short story or seeing a photograph a foreign concept, but seeing both types of media combined into a single art show might take the average Bowdoinite by surprise. This unique experience is what Rachel Goldman '10 has created in her upcoming show "With the Current," set to open this Friday in the Visual Arts Center (VAC) Fishbowl.
The seeds for this project were planted last spring when Goldman submitted a proposal through the photography department for the McKee Photography Grant. After receiving the grant, she was able to design her own project and receive funding to work on it all summer.
A long-time creative writer, Goldman was less familiar with photography, but was inspired by the medium after taking Photography I with Professor of Art Meggan Gould.
"Working with Professor Gould this summer was one of the most incredible experiences I've had at Bowdoin," Goldman said.
Her initial idea was to take photographs of random objects without any predetermined ideas for a narrative, and then proceed to craft short stories based on those pictures.
"I wanted to look at the ways in which photo and creative writing can create a narrative together," said Goldman. "I noticed that there was a photographic language that everyone used when analyzing photos and it was the same as the language I used to describe creative writing."
The subjects of her photographs have no particular unifying theme—they range from a snow globe to a can of tennis balls to a glass water bottle.
"I thought I would use objects that I bought at the flea market at Fort Andross to spark ideas," said Goldman. "Narrative can be inspired by almost nothing. The most banal and boring objects can spark narrative in writing and in photo."
Later in the process of completing the project, Goldman decided to turn the project on its head and see if her writing could inspire photographs just as her photographs had inspired narratives.
"Many times, the writing—either a specific moment or a feeling—seemed very vivid and visual to me," said Goldman. At these times, she took photographs inspired by those moments and feelings.
"The pictures do not regurgitate what has already been said in the text," she added. "The pictures focus on an emotive part of the text and blow it up for the reader to pause on. It really adds meaning and a different level of understanding to the existing text. The image and the writing work hand in hand—neither is greater than the other."
Once she combined the two media, Goldman found that both the writing and the photography drew power from one another to create a deeper overall understanding of the narrative.
"Sometimes, you can write or you can take a photo and it can be somewhat vague," she said. "But when I grounded the writing in objects, the objects took on a type of reality that was powerful to read about in writing and view in a photo."
The McKee Photography Grant requires the artist to display his or her work in a show upon completion of the project; the venue can be chosen by the artist. Goldman chose the Fishbowl (the two neighboring hallways located on the ground floor of the VAC) to display her work for very specific reasons.
"It became important to me for the project to have an in-your-face quality. In the fishbowl, people will pass through it every day," she said.
Goldman used a medium format camera for her photographs, enabling her to display small objects in great detail.
The fishbowl is also ideal for displaying Goldman's large-scale works.
"Having used that big camera and focusing on things that are so small, I was able to blow things up to large proportions—much bigger than life size," she said.
The photographs are not the only part of the project that will be amplified in scale—the text in her display is significantly increased in size, as well. While large text is usually used for other purposes, Goldman's use of text works outside the conventional boundaries.
"The large-scale text you see on the wall or street is generally used for signs or warnings," she said. "You are never given an interesting fictional narrative to read as you are walking across campus."
The narratives themselves seem to escape categorization into any specific genre, although Goldman did hint to some of their subject matter.
"They are family stories. Stories that make you think," she said. "They can be hard to digest at times."
Goldman has found great success at exactly what she set out to accomplish: combining the forces of photography and writing to create powerful, meaningful and somewhat confrontational narratives.
"Looking at a story, understanding a story, and reading a story can combine to be almost the same thing," she said.
Two short stories with their accompanying photographs are displayed on the wall of the Fishbowl. The project consists of five stories in total, with photographs embedded into the text of each story. Goldman has also arranged the project into a printed book and copies will be on sale at her opening.
Rachel Goldman's "With the Current" opens tonight from 7-9 p.m. at the VAC Fishbowl. The show will be on display until October 5.