My Capstone Exhibition!

On Saturday, April 17th, I installed my senior thesis exhibition! As part of my Capstone class, we had to write a research paper, and produce creative work to put into a gallery exhibition curated by the class. So, from August to December, we wrote the research paper. From February to now, we focused on our creative work and the exhibition.

For my Capstone project, I researched how grief affects young adults between the ages of eighteen and thirty, and how society has expectations for how people in this age group should grieve. For my creative work, I interviewed and photographed young adults adults in the age group I used in my paper. I asked each of the people I photographed and interviewed to bring an item with them to be photographed with that represented or belonged to a person that they lost. I photographed detail images of those items and also had quotes displayed with each of the images from the interviews I conducted with each of the people.

Another part of the Capstone process is to present an oral defense of your paper and creative work. The oral defense is a presentation that defends your research and discusses how your creative work connects to your research paper, if it does at all. I had my oral defense on Wednesday, April 21st, and I passed! I had my closing reception on the 23rd of April. It wasn't open to public due to COVID regulations, but thankfully my classmates and some of my professors got to come see the show! I also took down my show the same night due to the gallery being needed for other things the day after. I do have a page on this site under Portfolio that says Senior Thesis. If you are curious as to what I photographed for my Capstone project, you can check it out!

This Capstone project has been the most difficult and most rewarding thing I have ever done and experienced. The topic of my project was something that I have been wanting to make a photography series about for a little while now, and being able to do it this way was really amazing. The research paper was also a really eye opening and great experience because I learned more about grief and the different grief expectations people have for people between eighteen and thirty.

Thank you to everyone who participated in my research and the creative work process, and thank you to everyone who was able to come and see the show! Also, thank you to you guys for supporting me throughout this process and throughout my business. You guys are wonderful!

- Kes