From the concept of time to the realities of migrant labor, “Memento” has it all.
The senior photo series located in the student art galleries put forward the vision of Cal State Long Beach film and photography students.
Steven Esperanza explored his family’s careers by delving back into his hometown in the Imperial Valley.
His interest in photography goes back to a polaroid camera his father gave him.
“I was just taking selfies at eight years old and that’s how it all started,” Esperanza said.
Although his knowledge of the camera was limited, it allowed Esperanza to self document his childhood.
His video gallery, “Los Campos de Agricultura” featured a series of workers harvesting and packing green onions on screens mounted to the four gallery walls with a stack of produce shipping boxes stacked in the center.
The series was inspired by and filmed in his hometown of the Imperial Valley in California, where his family worked in produce fields.
Esperanza remembers the workers being bussed in at 5 a.m. and working until 8 p.m. in weather that exceeded 100 degrees.
“Growing up around that I wanted to just give back to my community and shoot something that just reminded me of my hometown,” Esperanza said.
He used the videos to show the journey of produce production from the fields to packing and transit to the local grocer.
One of the other featured senior photography students, Michael Dadula, aimed to have his viewers question their own expectations of the passage of time.
Dadula’s introduction to photography was his girlfriend buying him a camera to shoot cars, which led to a passion for the skill.
“I didn’t even know what shooting in manual was,” Dadula said. “I just got it out of the box and started shooting. I didn’t know about ISO or shutter speed, I just started shooting.”
Dadula wanted to toy with his viewer’s concept of time with his set of three televisions in the corner of a shotgun hallway playing a thematically-linked looping video of cars, people and spaces.
His interest in playing on time comes from his own conundrum of being a 27-year-old college senior, which he feels displaces him from his peers’ age group.
“You think you’re supposed to be at one point in your life, but you’re not and that lets life take its toll on you,” Dadula said.
One of the concurrent themes throughout his films, ”Night Memories,” “I’d Rather Live Outside” and “Hope You’re Doing Well” is breaking a sense of linear time, whether it be unmoving or moving in reverse.
This comes through in “Night Memories” on the two screens playing an endless loop of driving from inside a car. The third screen played the car starting up, stopping and the driver getting in and out.
“We just see time as this very linear thing, it’s only before and after,” Dadula said. “There’s no up and down. Space has an up down and left to right. It’s three dimensional and time has only one.”
“Hope You’re Doing Well” shifts this play on time by showing an ever-mounting tension that never releases through long shots of a bedroom paired with a shower head running.
“Memento” will be on display in the student art galleries on Wednesday from noon to 7 p.m. and Thursday from noon to 5 p.m.
This article was updated with corrections on Nov. 29.
The caption also needs spellchecking.
This article is disappointing. There is absolutely mention of the other artists in the “Memento” show, such as Calvin Ma, Dania Beltan, and Christian Gatica? Seems to be some poor reporting on the daily 49ers end… Also. They all 5 are photography majors, none of who major in film.