The ETSU Department of Art and Design, in coordination with the Slocumb Galleries Curatorial Internship Program, brought the art exhibit “Moments and Vision: Photographs by Tore Terrasi” to ETSU’s campus.
The exhibit was proudly showcased in the Submarine Gallery of Campus Center Building throughout the first week of November.
“Moments and Vision,” curated by senior ETSU art student Annie Buckles, examines “the landscape photograph as a means to explore the landscape of a culture.”
Pictures on display were taken almost exclusively underground at subway stations using only a smart-phone to capture long, horizontal landscapes in these non-static moments of time.
“Technically,” said Terrasi. “This series utilizes the panorama feature of my mobile device. My aim was to explore beyond any obvious application of the technology, to see how creative one could get with this new and accessible format.”
According to Terrasi, the images in the exhibit came about using practically no post-shot manipulation.
“Since I have a proclivity to create time-oriented work, I aimed to use this feature to capture multiple successive moments and across a succession of spaces that could not otherwise be shot,” he said. “As a result, the images captured shift from landscapes to timescapes – from visual panoramas, to temporal panoramas. Each static image captures a duration range of 5 to 180 seconds.”
Terrasi holds the position of assistant professor of art at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received an M.F.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and then went on to teach there as well as later at Bridgewater State University, Rhode Island College and several other institutions before finding himself in Arlington.
Throughout his career he has always utilized photography or some form of mechanical reproduction in his artwork, which has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
“I am trained as a Graphic Designer and animator and have thought of myself exclusively as a photographer,” Terrasi said. “I do think of myself as an artist who uses and is informed by image making photography is just one possible avenue of expression.”
Terrasi has always thought of art as having the fantastic ability to re-contextualize situations, people, techniques and conventions.
He hopes the takeaway from viewing his exhibit “Moments and Vision” is obtaining a different way of looking at the world.
“The work is mostly a formal/technical investigation,” he said. “But I am aware of the cultural and social overtones it carries. My work—not just this series—tends to look at universals but often does so by exploring specific or even personal experiences.”
With artwork such as this, Terrasi wishes to allow just enough ambiguity so that each audience member to view one of the photos will get something different out of it than the next.
“It’s specific and nonspecific at the same time,” he said. “I hope the viewers are inspired. I hope they leave wanting to take risks. I hope they leave wanting to see more.”
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