Borders: Selections from the Light Work Permanent Collection
Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery
March 20 - May 5, 2006
Monday - Friday: noon - 5 p.m.
Saturday: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Boundaries, restrictions and limits - or maybe borders - are a threshold, a brink or an edge? These are the questions raised in the latest show in the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery this spring. Borders: Selections from the Light Work Permanent Collection is an exhibition of 35 photographs, many of which are by internationally renowned artists, curated by Syracuse University students.

"For the students who conceived this exhibition, borders are not walls but windows overlooking a terrain where intimations are more common than certainties," says Professor Mary Lou Marien of the students in her Art & Identity course in the college of Arts & Sciences. She adds, "They signed up for what looked like a lecture course and ended up with no textbook, few lectures, and a great reliance on their own judgments about hot-button topics, such as spirituality, ethnicity, sexuality, and globalization."

This exhibit echoes the intellectual and artistic festival Syracuse Symposium for which the campus was invited to explore the way borders - visible and invisible - impact human kind in profound ways socially, politically, culturally, artistically, intellectually and personally.

In a statement for the catalogue the student curators wrote, "This is a hopeful show-not only in its philosophy but also in its trust that viewers will engage contemporary art and let it affect them. We hope that among these pictures and ideas, you find a special moment or insight."

The 35 images in the show utilize a variety of media, including silver gelatin, chromogenic and archival inkjet prints by internationally known artists such as Hon Pfahl, Linda Connor, Zana Briski, Clarissa Sligh and Bruce Gilden.

This exhibition is a collaborative effort, supported by Syracuse University's Soling Program and Light Work, a non-profit photo and imaging center on campus which provides support to artists working in photography or photo-based media. The Light Work Collection of over 2,000 photographs is accessible on line at www.lightwork.org. The collection is an extensive and diverse archive for mapping trends and developments in contemporary photography and it reflects Light Work's commitment to emerging and under-recognized artists.