Student Photography Exhibit on Immigration

Presenting eighty hand-printed black and white photographs by Rebecca Abbe, Molly Dickinson, Marie Hamilton, Shannon Hamilton, Pallavi Menon, Anna Paustenbach and Greg Randall on display from Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00am to 6:00pm and by appointment at SPUR Projects, 888 Portola Road in Portola Valley, California.

For further information contact the gallery at 650.529-2040 or teacher / organizer Lars Howlett at lhowlett [at] shschools.org

Additional details and images will be posted soon at http://www.spurprojects.com

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Seven advanced photography students from Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, California have been exploring the issues of immigration and cultural identity through the lenses of their cameras. Working on film and in black and white, the high school students have been documenting community events, rallies and daily life in the Mexican and Central American immigrant communities of the Bay Area including Fair Oaks and San Rafael. In March five students traveled to Tijuana to spend five days at the Casa del Migrante, a Catholic refuge that provides meals and beds each night for up to 150 migrants and deportees. Students shared dinner with the migrants, hearing first-hand accounts of the harsh realities of life on either side of the border. Along with making portraits of the men, the photographers also explored the communities along the wall, documenting the daily joys and hardships in neighborhoods under the shadow of the United States.

On May 16th the students will present eighty hand-printed black and white photographs in an exhibition premiering at SPUR Projects in Portola Valley. Students will be showing the work at various venues over the course of the next four months including at school, on the Peninsula, in San Francisco and within the local Mexican-American community. A website and book presenting further images from this group project are also being planned and further support is needed.

This marks the second public exhibition for photographers Rebecca Abbe, Pallavi Menon, Molly Dickinson, Marie Hamilton and Greg Randall whose winter show "The 5 Senses" held at the Bank of America in Menlo Park was well received by the public and in the local media. This is the first public showing by Anna Paustenbach and Shannon Hamilton. Shannon was also awarded first prize for youth in the Palo Alto Weekly photo competition held this year. Selected images from the immigration project were also exhibited at the 2007 Forum on Day Laborers held by the Cesar Chavez Institute at San Francisco State University.

The teacher and organizer of the project is Lars Howlett, a visual artist based in San Francisco and part-time photography instructor at Sacred Heart Preparatory. He can be reached at lhowlett [at] shschools.org for more information and/or for inquiries about holding other showings or usage of the images from this series. The project and exhibition(s) are made possible by Sacred Heart Preparatory with the support of the Office of Service Learning and SPUR Projects who will host the initial showing from May 16 through June 8th.