Quotidian Objects brings together sixteen emerging photographers from the Communication Design Department at City Tech, each turning their lens toward an everyday object to reveal the stories we often overlook. Developed as the Midterm Photography Project, this exhibition challenges students to move beyond technical proficiency and into the realm of meaning-making. However, they skillfully commend aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
Guided by the work of Hank Willis Thomas, Dulce Pinzon, Joy Gregory, and Miguel Luciano, students were invited to consider how an object for sale might carry personal, familial, or cultural weight. Whether cherished, coveted, dismissed, or misunderstood, the chosen objects function as portals into memory, identity, labor, ritual, and desire. Some artists revisit items from childhood homes; others confront objects tied to migration, spirituality, or generational traditions. A few examine commodities that shape identity through branding or aspiration.
The object I chose for my midterm project was a VideoNow. For context, the VideoNow was a popular handheld video player from the early 2000s that played Nickelodeon TV shows in monochrome colors. I mostly watched SpongeBob on my VideoNow as a kid.
I wasn't born in the iPad baby generation, so this was my iPad back in 2003. Throughout the photo series, you will see it either playing a preview of other shows or the SpongeBob "Band Geeks" episode. Whenever my grandmother would take me outside with her to run errands, I brought my VideoNow with me for entertainment. That is the essence I wanted to capture with this photo series.
The photos portray that nostalgic feeling of escaping into the world of SpongeBob while running errands. My grandmother would always take me with her to places like the bodega, the supermarket, the post office, and the pharmacy.
To tell a story in my photo series, you will also see my friend, Alyany, modeling the VideoNow on the bus, subway, and in places my grandmother would take me for errands in the Lower East Side. During post-production, I chose to add vibrance to the colors in the images, especially the main object. Many commercials from the 2000s featured bright colors too.
