THROUGH THE LENS

In my final few months at my predominantly white high school, I wanted to discover the stories the administration chooses not to preserve. Discarded and looked past, much of Andover’s institutional memory turns to smoke with every graduating class that departs.

My attempt to return the narratives of my former peers of color to Andover’s campus proved fruitless, and the failure had me considering a new question: what stories will be told on my behalf? Will they be told at all?

A new approach led to this photo series capturing four amazing, marginalized student leaders in the Trustees Room – a place the school bars students from entering. I originally shot each frame in color, but eventually decided to convert them to black and white. With the lack of color, I ask each viewer to judge what will be the fate of my work and legacy in the institution. Is it timeless and irremovable? Or have the emotions of joy and sorrow we often associate with color been stripped away?

The piece not only captures the perpetual plight of Andover’s institutional memory but due to its impermanence, becomes another story that meets the same tragic fate.

I entered this project with a question, and beautifully, left with another that I have yet to answer.

Photos and words by Kris Aziabor.