Shelter Island School 1979

Curator: This is Per Brandin's "Shelter Island School," a black and white photograph in the Harvard Art Museums collection. Editor: It's got such a poignant, almost melancholic mood, hasn't it? Like a still from a coming-of-age film. Curator: Absolutely. Brandin captures these young students lined up against a blackboard scrawled with lessons and what seems like the name of another student, Scott Cahill. We see the constraints of institutionalized education, childhood conformity. Editor: There's a vulnerability, too. You can almost feel the weight of expectation on those little shoulders. Curator: Precisely. Brandin uses the stark contrast to highlight the children’s expressions, their individuality struggling against the backdrop of uniformity. It’s a critique of systems and a look at identity formation. Editor: I can see that now, I was too lost in the nostalgia. Maybe that's the point; it stirs up both comfort and unease. Curator: Perhaps. Art often holds that tension, doesn't it? Editor: It certainly does.