Utopia/Dystopia (Final Edits)
For this project, I wanted to depict a utopia through photographing students. I photographed 4 of my friends in the library, and had them wear the same outfit to seem “perfect”. When picking props, I also chose 4 identical books for them to use, to convey the idea that they’re studying the same thing. I hope that though this is a utopian scene, viewers find the contradictory to an ideal learning setting. Individuals have different learning styles, and learn at different rates. Standardized testing, and the way that many students are taught within the public education system, forgo the idea of the individual, and hold large groups of students of the same age to the same standards. In order to maximize one’s learning capabilities, one must find how they personally learn best. In a utopian society, however, the way students learn would all be identical and “perfect”, so by portraying this in a photo series, I hope to convey the irony of learning in a utopian society.
