Why Color? A Class Residency for Edu-Curation

Why Color? is the first class residency piloted by the Center for Creative Photography + Art & Visual Culture Education in the School of Art. Simultaneously a classroom and installation, the project launches in early September, inviting University of Arizona graduate students in the course “Participatory Practices and Edu-Curation in Exhibitions” to design an exhibition from CCP’s collection of color photography. The goal? To create an art-influenced community experience that can be both educational and meaningful, as well as collaborative.

In Why Color?, the exhibition is accomplished in two stages. The first is a review of color processes, showing how experimentation and evolution is at the foundation of color photography. There is also a collection of books, games, and archival reproductions to explore, topics ranging from the effects of color on emotion to Polaroid pictures, from cultural histories of color to photographers’ work prints.

The second stage, set to be completed in early November 2022, realizes the semester-long work of participating students. Themes are ultimately up to the graduate students, their specific interests and concerns, and will also be securely rooted in ideas of community, collaboration, and interdisciplinary engagement by way of color photography.

Highlights include photographs by Lalla Essaydi, Mark Klett, Reagan Louie, Joyce Neimanas, Catherine Opie, and Edward Weston.