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An exhibition of photographs by Ajay Hirani ’04 opens at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, April 1, in The Underground Gallery, Dean of Studies Office, Markle Hall.
Entitled Nova Progenis (New Beginnings), the display features digital images shot in August at New Student Orientation for the class of 2007.
“We all remember the first days at college, the mixture of emotions that fills the heart, the apprehension, the first taste of freedom, a few moments of solitude among the chaos, and the search for a new order,” Hirani writes in the exhibition catalog. “In these photographs I have attempted to capture the metamorphosis that students ensue as they step into Lafayette College, embarking on their personal journey into uncharted waters.”
Born in Bombay, India, Hirani is pursuing a B.S. in physics and A.B. in mathematics-economics at Lafayette. He plans to pursue post-graduate studies in photography in Bombay and work as a freelance photojournalist based in Europe.
The curators of the exhibit are first-year students Milos Jovanovic, of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, and Vijay Krishnan of Maharashtra, India. They also collaborated on the text and design of the exhibition catalog.
“[Ajay’s work] exquisitely captures the anxieties of new students as they shed the comforts and security of their past and muster their determination and hopefulness to embrace their new reality,” writes Fluney Hutchinson, dean of studies, in the catalog. “Ajay’s imagination vividly portrays the joyful marriage between our students’ anxieties and our nurturing faculty’s strengths, reassurance, and passion. Through his lens we appreciate the orientation leaders, RA’s, peer mentors, and advisers for being wickedly kool and a blast, and for their incredible and tireless work as cheerleaders and big brothers and sisters to our new students.”
Also collaborating in the exhibit are Stacy Melise and Keisha Webster, 13 year-old Easton residents and members of the Boys and Girls Club of Easton, who assisted Hirani and benefited from his mentoring as externs during the shooting.