"Evolution"
Ely Center of Contemporary Art
New Haven
June 26 - July 6, 2025
The blossoms on the tree in the background portend spring, but the photographer is interested in more than capturing a nice day. The two young women are rendered in crisp, black and white detail, enough perhaps to appreciate that they’re siblings. They are, in fact, twins. But the lens is focused enough on them that we’re allowed to look past their similarities to their differences. Some are choices, in clothing and hairstyle. Some are in subtle differences in their faces. Twins though they may be, they’re also individual humans, and the photographer lets us see all of it: the things that bring them together and the things that make them individually who they are.
The photo is part of “Evolution,” running Thursday through July 6 at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art at 51 Trumbull St., with an artists’ talk on June 29. “Evolution” is “a photographic exploration of transformation — both internal and external — told through the lens of young photographers,” an accompanying note states. “The exhibition moves through themes of light and shadow, memory and loss, presence and absence. It weaves together intimate portraits, architectural studies, and conceptual works that ask what it means to grow, to question, to remember, and to become.
“Within these images, we witness tenderness and truth: portraits of strangers and family members captured with a gaze of love; images of New Haven’s parks and buildings rendered with reverence and curiosity; blurred photographs that speak to the fragility of memory and what cannot be fully held onto. Family archives emerge as sites of both joy and pain, and self-portraits serve as tools of self-invention — where alter egos become a means to move from doubt into self-assurance.”
“Evolution” is also a record of the fourth year of the Wábi Arts FOCUS Fellowship Program for high school students, run by photographer, educator, and Wábi Gallery founder Kim Weston. The students — Mason Booker, Nicholas Clement, Jaylin Ambrose Cooper, Bethany Edwards, Alexandriana S. A. Fuentes, Tywain Harris, Snigtha Mohanraj, Abril Rosario, Nickolas E. Santaella, Wes Weston, and Brayden Zawadowski, all from New Haven schools — came to the class with varied photography experience. Some had been working on it for years; for others, it was their first time using a camera other than the one on their phone.
They met with Weston twice a week for three hours to learn the technical aspects of photography, go out on shoots, engage in critiques, and study other contemporary artists, including Priya Kambli, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dawoud Bey, Alec Soth, Leslie Hewitt, and Bill Jacobson. They also worked with other New Haven-area photographers; Amartya De took the students out on a shoot, and they visited Lotta Studios, where photographer Mistina Hanscomb taught them about lighting.
Weston designed the program to teach the students “how to sustain themselves through photography,” she said — that is, to learn about photography as an avenue not only for self-expression and connection with others, but for income as well. The students who apply to the program must demonstrate a “true interest in a career as a fine art or commercial photographer,” as the program’s website states. “At the completion of the program, each Fellow will have a professional group exhibition and professional portfolio to continue a career in the arts,” making it “one of the core goals of Wábi: to help young talented artists learn, explore, network, and enhance their understanding of the business of being an artist.”
Through their work, Weston said, the students in this year’s cohort have “all earned the cameras they were given. I don’t look at them as teenagers. That’s the title of the box we put them into. But once their mind’s set, and they’ve been introduced to something that allows them to have the feeling to express themselves, it’s amazing what these young people are able to do.”
“Evolution” amply demonstrates the students’ dedication to developing their craft, and on the eve of the show’s opening, they were ready to talk shop. Fuentes talked about her preference for color photography. Inspired by Bill Jacobson, who explores what can be done with out-of-focus images, Fuentes felt that with “more colors, there’s more perception. There’s more you can go off of” as a viewer. Santaella preferred black and white photography; it “lets you imagine the story,” he said. “It just enhances everything and makes you wonder.” He cited LaToya Ruby Frazier as inspiration for his own approach. Cooper also preferred black and white for the “timeless, archival feel” it imparted to his landscapes. But Booker liked color better for its ability to “add a different feel to your picture.”
“The way the sun is in a picture can make you feel some kind of way,” and color can impart “that meaning and that feeling,” he said.
The students talked about how Weston helped them expand and develop their craft, pushing one who gravitated toward landscapes to try out portraiture. In a portrait of a person, Booker said, “you can see their background, see their story. You can see where they came from.” But also, “if you do a landscape right,” Cooper said, “it allows you to walk into the photo, as if you’re experiencing it for yourself.” Weston remarked on how her students had done shoots in New Haven’s parks to “tell a story with the landscape” about “a city inside the city.” From the beginning of the class, Weston pushed her students to make sure their photographs told a story, and “from then on I started taking my pictures intentionally,” Fuentes said, to convey “the mindset you set to create that photo.” To do that, Fuentes said, you have to “know yourself” and take your time. It was better, Fuentes learned, “not to have any expectations as well, because that ruins the whole journey of taking the photo.”
“You’re inside of your photo,” Fuentes continued. “Your photos are always going to have your personality, you’re going to have your personal point of view. Nobody’s ever going to take a photo like you.”
Some of the lessons the students learned from photography applied to their lives outside of photography. In fitting photography into the rest of the school schedule, Cooper learned time management skills. And for Harris, photography was tied intricately to personal growth. “I’ve been doing photography for three years,” Harris said. “I wanted to grow past the environment that I’ve grown in, that I came up in.” Weston “encouraged me to dream bigger.” And so “my work has been a love letter to myself. It shows me a world just beyond what I thought was possible. It has probably helped me become a better person,” to “see things beyond this.”
“Photography for me is not only a hobby, but self-expression. I think my photography holds more about me than the way I look,” Fuentes said. In the tumult of being a teenager, it was also a respite. “Just two minutes out of my day and I can work,” Fuentes said. “I can just take some really good work and feel good about myself, like, ‘I did that today.’ ”
“Evolution” runs at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, 51 Trumbull St., through July 6, with an artists’ talk on June 29. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information about “Evolution” and other new and ongoing exhibitions. Applications for the 2025 – 26 school year for the FOCUS Fellowship Program open in the fall; to apply, visit the fellowship’s website.
