Pop-Up Exhibit Features Student Photography

Photographs from around the world are scattered throughout the third floors of the Harvard Peabody and Natural History Museums this week as a part of a pop-up exhibit called “Global Exposure.”

Hosted by the Harvard Business School Art Society, this week’s project marks the second year in which the student group collaborated with the Harvard Peabody and Natural History Museums to publicly display the photographs. According to project director and Art Society member Raghav Iyengar, the contest asks Business School students to take pictures from trips they take and to submit their best two photographs to a panel of judges.

A winning photo from The Global Exposure Project, a photo competition sponsored by the Arts Society of the Harvard Business School, stands on display in the Peabody Museum of Archeology & Ethnology Thursday. The competition asks HBS students to submit original photography. Winners will be exhibited in both the Peabody Museum and the Harvard Museum of Natural History until Monday, May 2. By Sidni M. Frederick

“Typically because it’s done in connection with the Natural History Museum, we have two major categories: photos depicting the flora and fauna of place, that could mean wildlife, that could mean landscape or anything else. The other one is depicting people and cultures,” he said.

Sylvie Laborde, assistant director of the Museum of Natural History and one of the judges on the panel for the project, said she looked for unexpected elements when selecting the photos.

“I kind of like that surprise factor, something where you look at it and you’re like ‘oh.’ It’s people in a totally different setting, not the touristy picture, but you feel like you’re right there and it’s everyday life,” she said.

Around 40 photos were submitted this year, but only 15 were selected for display, according to Iyengar.

Business School student Rahima F. Dosani said she was inspired by the women featured in one of her two photographs that the judges selected. The photograph was from a visit to a tea plantation during a trip to India earlier this year.

“The actual women are incredible. They pluck 3,000 bushels of tea a day, and with 80 types of tea. It’s a busy place. They supply a lot of tea to global brands,” Dosani said. “Its cool to see local entrepreneurship grow to reach a global scale.”

The winning photographs are on display throughout the third floors of the buildings housing the museums, mixed in with the permanent exhibits. Museum visitors can see the photographs until May 2.