Registration Day: The Student Portrait in Context is a digital curatorial project that situates the Elaine Mayes Photography Collection within the history of photography education, and the genre of student portraits. The teaching of photography theory and practice is central to this category of portraits, as the student signals a mode of practically ceaseless production and discovery of images. In pictures of Hampshire students by Elaine Mayes, and in student portraits by other photographers, the viewer witnesses a subject in transition, always on the threshold of something new.
This exhibition was organized in conjunction with the Archives and Special Collections at Hampshire College, the Harold Johnson Library, and the Institute for Curatorial Practice at Hampshire College.
Special thanks goes to Jennifer King, Rachel Beckwith, Abby Baines, and the entire staff at the Harold Johnson Library; Jocelyn Edens and the Institute for Curatorial Practice; Elaine Mayes, Amy Halliday, Jackie Hayden, Sandra Matthews, Andrew Hart, and the Robert Lisle Collection of Historic Photography for making this project possible.
