Thirteen students from the senior thesis photography course will display their final projects at The MINE Factory April 23-May 2 in an exhibition titled, “XIII.” The show will include a variety of art, including photography, installations, videos, sound, sculpture and collage work. Admission is free to all students and outside visitors. Food and beverages will also be provided.

“A lot of times when students come in as freshman, they have a really narrow idea of the medium, and it’s so broad,” Assistant Professor of Photography April Friges said. “We can be commercial; we can be fine art; we can be documentary; we can be photojournalism; we can be artists that challenge what photography even means today because it’s shifting and changing so quickly.”

Emily Faller, Kels Pennell and Hannah Harley are three examples of students who will graduate this spring with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography. Joining them in “XIII” are Ryan Maine, Michelle Montana, Neil Curran, Abby Wright, Liz Berie, Ren Finkel, Matt Nemeth, Monique Parham and Nicole Fritz.

“It’s nice because it’s not just a degree in photography. It’s a degree in fine arts,” said senior photojournalism major Faller. “So you get more of a rounded education. You learn more of like the darkroom printing and different methods within it, and it’s not just taking pictures with a digital camera.”

Faller will present a thesis based on her own anxiety. She hopes to showcase her own experience so others can relate in some way. One of her images, titled “Looming Thoughts,” portrays sleepless nights provoked by anxiety.

“I am lying on a bed, and I have this black sheet floating over me,” Faller said. “It represents lying in bed, having so much on your mind and you can’t seem to get it out. You lie awake for hours, and the black sheet just represents those thoughts that stay over you.”

All students are required to write a research paper to accompany their photographs. Faller has taken a non-traditional route. Her paper is written as a conversation between her and a psychologist.

“My paper is about working through problems, working to go through different solutions and what I can do to help take baby steps to overcome certain anxieties,” Faller said. 

After graduation, Faller plans to continue with her photography business. Emily Faller Modern Photography, which she created in 2013, currently focuses on senior portraits and family photos. Faller’s dream job is to open her own studio within the Pittsburgh area. For now, she is focusing on increasing her clientele.

“To be able to make art, you have to make money first,” Faller said.

Senior photography and multimedia major Kels Pennell also chose to focus her thesis on the mind. Her photographs represent the relationship between memory and photography. Pennell purchased random photos from Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse and eBay. The random photographs represent fragments of memories.  

“We kind of picture our memories as a library where we have a memory. We record it, and that’s how it stays,” Pennell said. “But memories are actually really fragile, and every time you revisit a memory, you’re apt to change a detail of it.”

Pennell will be displaying an installation, which is a three-dimensional work. Her four 6-foot-3 frames are filled with webbed string, and the photos are laced throughout.  

“The idea is the four frames make a little room, and you walk into the room so you’re surrounded by the photos,” Pennell said.

The photos have been destroyed by different means, including burning, scratching and bleaching.

“Each photo is damaged just to kind of mimic the idea of memory deteriorating and not being perfect,” Pennell said.

Pennell is not the only student who chose to manipulate other people’s photographs. Senior photography major Hannh Harley is also taking photographs from outside sources to mold into a project of her own.

“My work is about pornography,” Harley said. “It’s analyzing the skin tones in pornography, specifically that race in pornography is fetishized and not considered normal.”

Harley has conducted thorough research on this topic. After a breakup in August, she decided to try the dating app called Tinder. She quickly realized that men often viewed her as just a sexual object and began researching their thought process. She began collaging men’s Tinder photos with their online biographies.

“The more strips I was looking at, I realized that the colors I was looking at were all one skin tone,” Harley said.

Harley also referenced a free online dating site called OkCupid. The website allows users to filter by race. The website found that nearly 82 percent of non-black male users displayed bias against black women. 

“I went to Smithfield and bought a ton of variety packs,” Harley said. “There was one that was the Playboy Worlds, and even then there wasn’t a black woman in the entire thing.”

She took her research and idea of collaging and turned it into her thesis project. Harley combined three canvas panels to create one large image.

“I cut a bunch of squares of skin tones out from these pornographic magazines, and I did a gradient from lightest to darkest,” Harley said. “The darkest are actually just folds of skin, or where there is no light. It’s not actually a darker skin tone.”

Harley hopes to start a dialogue about the types of pornography people are watching, and how this discrimination is being portrayed in mass media. After graduation, she will attend grad school at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, New York City.  

All three students have been working on their thesis projects the entire year. Senior Thesis, a two-part required course, is taught by Professor Friges. Students present their own topic at the beginning of the year, and then continue working on their photographs and research paper until the end of the spring 2016 semester. Students are able to display as many images as they choose. They also must sign a contract, stating that they will complete all class requirements including an artist statement, solo show, group show and a written thesis paper.

The program guide has evolved since the class began in 2013. Students are now required to take English classes to enhance their writing and research skills.

“I challenge them every year to expand their ideas and push their writing skills,” Friges said. “You can visually see that they’re establishing better materials.”

Friges also covers topics in the class such as art marketing and a presentation on whether or not graduate school is right for students. She stresses the importance of thinking ahead, and if applicable, understanding the proper steps to applying to grad school.

Students are kept busy over winter break. They are assigned a “back burner” project and a reading assignment on their thesis topic. Students applying to grad school are exempt from this.

One thing Friges loves about this group is that they challenge each other.

“This is one of the first groups of students that I’m seeing sort of grow,” Friges said. “Now I’m in my third year, so I’ve sort of been watching them since their sophomore year, so it’s really exciting to see where they’ve landed and how they developed, and even their plans for their future.”

The purpose of Friges’ class is to create artists.

“The worst artist is an artist who makes work and has no idea what the work is even about,” Friges said.

Harley also emphasized the importance of the exhibition.

“It’s not a photo show; it’s an art show,” Harley said. “It’s going to challenge you hopefully, and make you think about the world in a different way when you’re done.”

The exhibition’s opening ceremony will be April 23 from 6-9 p.m. The show runs until May 2. Gallery hours are Sunday through Thursday from 12-7 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 12-9 p.m. Two shuttles will be running every 30 minutes on April 23 only.