SBCC Photography Exhibition Empowers the Next Generation 

Through the maze of halls of the SBCC east campus administration building, excited voices tumbled out of the office of the student newspaper, The Channels. It wasn’t the typical buzz of a newsroom; on Wednesday afternoon, students, faculty, and friends gathered for a one day exhibition of The Becoming Experience: Student Photography Exhibition.

Photographed by SBCC Alum Lucia Kiel, the exhibition featured more than 30 portraits of 11 SBCC students, who had been nominated by their peers and mentors for “what they have all gone through, their strength, and their sense of purpose and joy,” said Becky Bean, social worker and student program advisor with The Well.

The Well is the first free-standing health and mental wellness center of the 116 California community colleges, and it has proven to be a model for preventative and holistic health services for other educational institutions. Each semester, the center hosts around 50 individual programming events for students including workshops, group counseling, and skill building groups. Bean said, “We’re small but mighty.”

Bean has been coordinating programming at The Well since the founding of the center seven years ago. Last week’s event being the “first photography exhibit we’ve done around mental health and wellness,” she said.

The show features two distinct parts: moody black-and-white As I Am portraits and vibrant color Becoming portraits. This exhibition is part of an ongoing practice for Kiel, whose work in both commercial and fine art realms aims to empower those in front of the lens. 

With aspirations to become an actress, Kiel said, “I had a horrible experience with a male headshot photographer.” That interaction launched her photography career in 2009, with the mission to “change how a person sees themselves, and hopefully helps them move forward with more self-love.”    

The As I Am portion of the work showcases the students’ vulnerable side; a stripped down set with dramatic lighting “in a weird pose where there’s little wrinkle, you know, that all of it’s beautiful,” said Kiel. This is paired with a statement from the student, describing why they picked the images they did. 

The Becoming portion of the work were fanciful portraits of these students embracing their imaginations and inner essences, pressing forward into their future selves. Some of these portraits referenced iconography such as the fiery phoenix or mighty power of the sea, Kiel used her background in magazine photography to create otherworldly images that captured the spirit these students are aiming to embody. 

Kiel describes the two halves of the project as “bookends of shifting the perception of beauty.”

“I feel like she really captured who I am,” said Blaze Osborne, a third-year student and host of weekly art therapy workshops at The Well.

The students represented in the exhibition are leaders in the school’s student resource centers ranging from Student Health Services, The Well, Disability Services and Programs for Students, the Office of Student Life, Umoja, and the Veterans Support and Resource Center.

“Over the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to realize and accept that my struggles and my hardships have helped make me who I am today,” said Osborne. For him, the As I Am portrait session was challenging, but rewarding. “I didn’t always love myself,” he said, glad that Kiel was able to capture “my realization of acceptance.” 

For Osborne, his Becoming portrait was a bit more stripped down than his counterparts. Grasping a copy of They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, Osborne says that Silvera’s writing has made him love reading. “It’s helped me process my own struggles and my own trauma because I’ve been able to connect these books to my own life.”

“The whole book series just kind of helped me realize who I am. And so that’s why I wanted to bring that into my photo shoot,” said Osborne.

“Working with current students, it was so special,” said alum Kiel. “We’re so fortunate to have such an amazing community college and such a diverse student body.”

She said that returning to the school she loves, and giving back to the current generation was an honor. “It’s very cool to go full circle.”