Spotlight: Hayley Levin ’16

Hayley Levin ’16 was recently named Grinnell College Athlete of the Week, as well as the Midwest Conference Women’s Swimming and Diving Performer of the Week. She holds the fastest time in the Midwest Conference this season for the 100 fly and 200 IM, is ranked second in the 400 IM, 100 breast and 200 breast and has the third-fastest time in the 200 free and 200 fly. She also swims on several highly ranked relays.

Photo by Saw Min Maw

Why did you choose Grinnell College? I chose Grinnell because I got recruited for swimming, which was the first eye-opener I had to Grinnell. Also, the academics are amazing and I believe a liberal arts education is important to have. Another really cool thing that drew me to Grinnell was that I could create my own schedule and I wasn’t limited to certain topics.

When did you begin swimming? I started swimming when I was nine through summer league. I actually did a bunch of other sports like ice-skating, gymnastics, softball and soccer. Eventually my mom said I needed to pick one and I just really loved being in the water. I just felt really good when I was in the water, so I stayed.

What was a highlight of the team training trip to Florida this year? The Connecticut College meet, which was outside and we were able to race fast people. On a non-swimming note, we had a beach day, which was a day off. We got to hang out with the entire team the whole day and bury ourselves in sand and play elbow tag in the ocean.

What do you hope to accomplish this season? I would really love to make nationals in the 400 IM.

What about between now and graduation? I would love to get a school record in the 400 IM. I think I’m close in the 200 IM right now actually, so I’d like to get that as well. It would be really nice to have my name up on the board.

When’s your next meet? Our next meet is this weekend against Macalester away. We have a home meet the weekend after that [February 1 and 2]. Please come and watch! It makes everyone so excited and I swim so much faster when my friends are there to cheer me on. We could always use timers to work at the meet too.

What are you most looking forward to this spring? I’m really excited about Conference. Everyone’s going to go fast and it’s going to be a great time for team bonding. We will be happy and energetic because we’re not tired anymore [because of tapering]. We are hosting Conference so people should come [Conference is February 15-17.]

Describe your ideal sandwich. Toasted, so the Nutella I would put on it would melt. It would have a little bit of strawberries on it; that would be good. The bread would be multi-grain.

-compiled by Jacqui Vautin Men’s and women’s track and field prepare for indoor, outdoor seasons

By Brendan Ramirez [email protected]

Second semester has just begun here at Grinnell College and with it comes the start of a new track and field season. Both the men and women’s teams had successful seasons last year and placed fifth at the Midwest Conference Championships. This year looks to be another promising one. The teams did well last year in competition and the athletes had a strong team bond. This is a trend that many hope will continue. “The team did a wonderful job supporting one another and everyone put in great efforts,” said thrower Kevin Pflaum ’13. “I think we’re becoming a more athletic program, while remaining inclusive and accepting of a wide range of talent,” said distance runner and S&B Sports Editor Jacqui Vautin ’13. Diana Seer ’15 has made the continuation of these strong bonds between teammates a goal for this season. “A team goal that I hope to achieve this year is having a positive, tightly knit team that supports one another across events,” Seer said. Pflaum has also made being a good teammate a goal of his for this year. “My biggest goal is just to have fun and try and be a good teammate,” Pflaum said. “I want to do my part and make sure I can support everyone the best I can!” With so much enthusiasm about camaraderie, the team will certainly be successful. There will be some challenges for the Pioneers to face this year. The women’s team in particular lost many athletes from last year. “Our junior class is a very large and talented class and most of them are abroad this semester, so that’s going to limit some of what we could do,” said Coach Evelyn Freeman. However, there is still plenty of hope for the women’s team to have a productive season. “[Losing the juniors] is going to hurt us a little bit, however we have a really good and large freshman class this year. And so we’re pretty excited,” Freeman said. Vautin and Seer also commented on the talented first year class, whose job it will be to pick up some of the slack resulting from the juniors who are studying abroad. “We have some quick first-year cross-country runners… who will hopefully help the team this year,” Vautin said. “The first year class looks very strong all around. There are some sprinters that are showing lots of potential as well as a few jumpers and hurdlers,” Seer said. “Overall, the first years on the team are a force to be reckoned with.” The men’s team is also excited about the new recruiting class. This year the Pioneers will have three home meets; two during the indoor season and one during the outdoor season. The first is the ACM Invite at 10:00 a.m. on February 2. The next meet is the Darren Young Classic at 10:00 a.m. on February 9. The outdoor meet hosted by the Pioneers will be the Dick Young Classic at 8:00 a.m. on April 20. The meets will need volunteers to serve as officials, who will receive a free lunch and t-shirt. “[The team] would also love it if people came and supported us at these meets. …I race the 10k and spectators help me so much,” Vautin said. Swim team tans, tones and trains in Florida

By Alysia Horcher [email protected]

During winter break, about half of the men and women’s swimming and diving teams traveled 1,500 miles to Naples, Florida for two tough weeks of training, as well as a meet against Connecticut College. The team left Grinnell on a bus on January 2 and returned on the afternoon of January 15, when they were joined by the rest of the team for a week of practice before the Pioneer Invite. While in Florida, the team enjoyed the beautiful weather, but rest and relaxation were not on the itinerary. Coach Erin Hurley had the team up bright and early for 7 a.m. practice, which swimmers described as being nothing short of intense. In the afternoon, the swimmers returned to the pool for dryland exercises, running and another practice. “The practices were challenging and consisted of a lot more yards than a typical practice we would do at Grinnell,” said Danielle Phillips ’15. The divers also had tough practices, but many of them, including Milton Garcia ’14, benefited by learning quite a few new dives. The meet against Connecticut College proved to be a challenge as both the men and women came out defeated. “Connecticut College is a very fast team that competes in a conference that is just on a different level than the Midwest Conference. However, we held our own and had some great swims and close races,” Phillips said. “It was exciting to swim against such fast competitors. Overall, it was a good experience for the team that really pushed us to come together and rise to a challenge.” “Everyone swam really well, especially considering how tired we all are from the training,” added Michael Brus ’14.

Photo by Allison Miller

Keeping with the usual team atmosphere of positivity and having fun, the divers made a song to the tune of “little bunny foo foo hopping through the forest” after fellow diver Xiaoxi Yang ’14 stepped on a bee on the pool deck. While the primary focus of the trip was training, the team had the opportunity to meet with alumni and trustees at a luncheon. “That [lunch] is probably one of the highlights of the trip because we get to connect with some alumni and get to eat really good food,” Brus said. The team also did some community service at a nature reserve where they helped to remove invasive species from the forest. The swimmers enjoyed a beach day, which was a highlight of the trip for many. The team has a busy few weeks ahead of them. On Friday, February 1 they will be hosting a meet against UNL Swim Club. The following day, Saturday, February 2, they will be hosting a meet against Coe College. The season will be winding down quickly as the team prepares to host the Midwest Conference Championships beginning on Friday, February 15 and continuing through Sunday afternoon. Men’s basketball continues quest to host conference tourney

By Graham Fisher [email protected]

With seven games left in the season, the men’s basketball team looks like it will finish strong and make a final push to host conference playoffs. However, even with two wins under their belt in their last three games, the Pioneers have not appeared to be shooting their typical 110-plus point efforts. According to Associate Men’s Basketball Coach Dave Arseneault Jr. ’09, there are a number of factors that have contributed to the flat quality of play, including Jack Taylor ’15 breaking his wrist, five players staying home with the flu, and a long trip back from College. In order to once again resume play at full throttle, Coach hopes that “home cooking is what we need,” in order to heal up and come out firing on all cylinders. Arseneault especially looks to veterans Griffin Lentsch ’13, Aaron Levin ’14, Jesse Ney ’13 and Patrick Maher ’14, as well as Luke Yeager ’15, to step up even more. Photo by John Brady Griffin Lentsch goes up for a layup during Wednesday night’s game against Monmouth.

“Those guys are going to have to cover us a little more. I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone that those are our best scorers, we’re just need them to increase their production a little bit…” he said. “[These players] can’t be looking left and right for somebody else; they just have to step up and do it themselves.” In addition to those players, he is encouraged by the play of Tague Zachary ’15, a 6’8” sophomore from Irvine, California, who played on the Under-20 British National Team this summer. “[Zachary] hadn’t shot the ball particularly well early in the year, but he’s come on very strong as of late,” Arseneault said. With all of that said, Arseneault is encouraged by the fact that many of the remaining games will take place in Darby Gymnaisum. However, he does not want to look too far ahead, but rather just take it one game at a time. “[Head Coach Arseneault] has done a great job building an atmosphere in the gym. We get such great student support, that [Darby] really has become a difficult place to play,” he said. “We really just need to show up [to play]!” On Wednesday, the Pioneers played Monmouth in a game at Darby Gymnasium. The Pioneer defense played strong and the offense, led by Lentsch, Zachary and Yeager, tallied a total of 93 points to lead the Pioneers to an easy victory. With less than a month left in the season, Grinnell looks to finish strong as it has six games left, four of which will be played at home in Darby Gymnasium.

The Fairgrounds residents fairly grounded

By Yishi Liang & Antonia Androski [email protected] [email protected]

Just across the street from Main residence hall is the clearly labeled and always lively house of Grinnell’s swimming and diving team, also known as the Fairgrounds. The house is the home to swimmers Emmanuel Spooner ’13, Beck Ringdahl-Mayland ’13, Richard “Tricky Dick Bigs” Bigler ’13, Alex Staff ’13 and diver Allison Miller ’13.

For most Grinnellians, their first impression of Fairgrounds is likely to be the dark, sweaty attic, which has become an infamous tradition in the house.

But recently, the members have invested their time and Spooner’s Lion King bedsheets to create a new spot that has quickly become the focus of the entire house: a blanket fort.

The housemates unanimously agree that the fort is now one of their favorite things about the house. It also received rave reviews from honorary house member and fellow swimmer Pun Winichakul ’13.

“I’m just so happy right now,” Winichakul said when he first experienced the euphoric atmosphere of the blanket fort.

A more permanent but lesser known feature of Fairgrounds is the Jacuzzi tub in the second floor bathroom.

“I used it once. Kind of cool. Elegant,” Ringdahl-Mayland said, the only person brave enough to have used the tub.

As if having all of these amenities was not enough, every member also has his or her own room. Four housemates live on the second floor while Spooner lives on the first. And though he is the lone occupant of the floor, his housemates try to ensure that he never feels too left out.

“I always hear them having dance competitions or stomping around or whatever they’re doing,” Spooner said.

Part of the reason that the group is so close is that every house member is a captain. Ringdahl-Mayland, Spooner and Staff are all swimming captains, while Miller is a diving captain. Bigler has been appointed party captain of the house.

But outside of the pool and the fort, their interests diverge and occasionally clash.

Ringdahl-Mayland has been accused by several of his housemates as having questionable taste in television programs, which include “Amish Mafia” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”

“It was once, and I immediately regretted it,” Ringdahl- Mayland claimed.

These television shows are perhaps too mainstream for resident hipster, Miller. Her status as the most hipster of the bunch is unchallenged, but the rankings of the rest are hotly disputed. “I don’t understand how I’m less hipster than Beck,” Staff protested when being placed last behind Ringdahl-Mayland. “I’m a philosophy major!”

Miller quickly came to Ringdahl-Mayland’s defense, “But he can grow that creepy hipster mustache.”

Despite the great hipster debate, there are some things that the group can unanimously agree on. When asked what their favorite place in the house was prior to the blanket fort, all (except Bigler himself) quickly responded with “Rick’s bed!”

The residents of the Fairgrounds, clockwise, Ringdahl-Mayland, Staff, Miller, Bigler and Spooner snuggle up against the winter chills.

No specific reason was given for why the bed was so beloved.

Fairgrounds is not only home to this group of fun-loving swimmers, though. The place also holds a great deal of history and memorabilia. Throughout the years, the house has accumulated many unique items, which have included old swimming banners, authentic street signs, boxing gloves, a light saber and a swimming trophy from the 1940s.

“It’s just a thrift shop here,” Rigler said. All of items were warmly welcomed. However, something warm but not quite as welcome was found during a routine attic cleanup.

“One fateful day, I went up there and I called Beck over and I said ‘Beck, is this what I think it is? Is this human feces?’” Spooner recalls.

And indeed it was.

Through the ups and downs, the five fairly grounded members of the house have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the tradition of Grinnell’s swimming and diving team.

D-Halal’s new venue and ice cream at the Grill

By Lily Jamaludin [email protected]

This spring semester, Dining Services has introduced several new changes to the Marketplace and the Spencer Grill.

The Marketplace—or, D-Hall, as it is more commonly called—added a new halal venue and updated its previous gluten-free venue. The Spencer Grill introduced products from the 2nd Street Creamery, an Iowa-based ice cream company.

The halal section was set up for Grinnell’s Muslim students, motivated by efforts from the Muslim Students Association (MSA), the Center for Religion, Spirituality and Social Justice (CRSSJ) and the Office of the President.

“My MSA group members and I began to make an effort to make changes in the dining hall as early as last year, when we first noticed the surprising number of food items containing pork and alcohol that were not labeled as such. This is problematic for students following both the Muslim and Jewish faith,” said Lana Mahgoub ’14, a member of the MSA.

Halal meat must be prepared according to Islamic dietary guidelines. Grinnell’s halal meat will be supplied by the Midamar Corporation and prepared separately in the Marketplace.

“The food…would be prepared in a manner that is acceptable for halal foods. We would rinse our ovens before we prepare that food, to make sure that there isn’t cross-contamination,” said Jeanette Moser, Associate Director of Marketplace Operations.

Other than separate preparation in a clean oven, the halal station will generally follow the same menu as other parts of the Marketplace. Dining Services hopes that students who do not follow halal restrictions will choose other options.

“There is quite an expense to the Halal meat program. So if you bring everybody to that venue for halal cooked meats, that would touch our budget fairly significantly,” Moser said.

This week, the Halal venue has served samosas with ground beef and Moroccan vegetable stew.

For Muslim students, the new changes are a great relief.

“I’m very thankful that Grinnell has decided to accommodate us with the halal station. Now when I go to the dining hall, I don’t need to wander around anymore—straight to the halal station,” said Uzma Daraman ’15.

The gluten-free station in the Marketplace was also upgraded. The new changes to the gluten-free station include a sneeze guard and an under-counter mounted heating system.

“We had a gluten-free station that didn’t meet the needs of the health code of Iowa,” Moser said. “[Now] it’s high-tech, it’s safe, and it does a better job of keeping food hot than the system we were [previously] using. We’ve also made it so that the food won’t get so dried out, because we had problems with that also.”

The new heating system uses induction-heating technology. A magnetic contact made through the granite keeps the cooking surface cool, yet heats the serving pans.

Last but not least, the Spencer Grill has introduced ice cream into its menu. The ice cream comes from 2nd St. Creamery, a company based in northwest Iowa.

Photo by Saw Min Maw The fun flavors include Truck Stop Fudge, Blackhills Strawberry Rhubarb, Copper Kettle Caramel, Cannoli di Nonni, Almond Butter Hazelnut Fudge, and Mint Chocolate Victory.

Each container costs $5.50.

“[If we sold] Ben and Jerry’s, I’d have to sell it for $7.00. This was definitely a better choice for the same quality,” said Mary Kirk, Assistant Director of Retail and Vending.

The prospects for sales look good. According to Kirk, students are already buying, despite the winter cold.

“They are so wonderful, I just want to eat them all myself,” she said with a laugh. Gardner prepares for punk invasion

By Geo Gomez [email protected]

The Orwells bring a nostalgic, adolescent-angst infused punk to Gardner this Friday, January 25. The five-member, all-male band from Elmhurst, Illinois will wail Grinnellians into a classic punk mosh pit euphoria.

The Orwells, a five-man band, will be playing Gardner this Friday, January 25 at 9 p.m.

In their song “MallRat (LaLaLa),” the band opens with the quote “I believe with all my heart that rock n’roll is a contributing factor in delinquency,” from a reverend preaching against the sin of rock n’roll. As if responding directly to this lament, the song begins with a drawn out cry from the guitars, quickly followed by a rapid drumroll: at the same time an introduction but also a homage to the bands punk music. The song is carried by a sharp guitar riff, repeating until it drills its way into your head. It is instantly an appealing song, lively and youthful, with a drumbeat that bangs along with guitar. It sounds like it was recorded in a garage, which contributes to its frenetic, packed feel. Adding to this quick pace is the staccato delivery of the lyrics: singer Mario Cuomo wails “she get’s it a-a-a-a-all” and “we’re gonna show them a-a-a-a-all.” The Orwell’s classic approach to punk, especially with the chorus of “la la la”, is meant to get a crowd wailing and jumping. In their music video for “Mallrats,” the band cruises around a mall with skateboards and jean jackets. My first thought was that they looked like they had just robbed a Hot Topic. But as they ate pizza, played arcade games for tickets and exchanged the tickets for a pink stuffed bear which they lit in a bonfire ritual in a backyard, I realized that these kids are just that: kids. Kids that make music just as youthful as they are. This kind of youthful care-free energy can be seen in the video for their song “In My Bed,” where the band lies on the stage as they play their instruments. The song switches between slow-tempo twangs and an apocalyptic jamming where the band really lets it rip. Cuomo’s face turns tomato red as his eyes bulge out while he screams, “I tried, I tried, she lied, she lied, It’s too late, too late, good bye, good bye.” The song has all the characteristic angst of adolescence, but with a nostalgia beyond their years, invoking a classic sound. Cuomo writhes on the floor as if he is reliving the emotions of the song as he is singing it and ends the video dropping the mic with eyes wide open, as if the intensity of the song had drained all energy out of him. Twin Peaks, a band hailing from , Illinois and opening for The Orwells, also follows garage punk tradition. Their song “Fast Eddie” is an upbeat, near-jingly rock song where the vocals are sung in a low and breathy voice, while the chorus is a breakout of the group singing in unison. It is infectious and fun, reminiscent of both pop and rock. On songs like “Out of Commission,” the band gets a little more rough and tumble, giving themselves over to screaming vocals and lightning fast guitar solos. Upon looking up the band Twin Peaks and watching their performance on the all-ages show Chic-A-Go-Go, featuring an adorable mouse puppet who interviews the bands, I saw that I had actually gone to grade school with two of the members. What are the odds! Illinois is turning it out, so be sure to see what these punk rockers have to offer Friday, January 25 at Gardner.

Paducah, formerly [gluestick], still noisy

By Alex Claxton [email protected]

Clint Williamson ’13, Vadim Fainberg ’13 and Concerts Chair Pooj Padmaraj ’13 got together to form Gluestick in the beginning of their first year on campus. Looking back on it, the three emphasized how natural the process felt and how quickly it happened. “Clint and I lived on the same floor our first year, so the first day … I knew he played guitar and he knew I played the drums. Vadim started hanging out with us pretty soon and he was like, ‘I play guitar too!’ So we just started playing,” Padmaraj said. The bandmates were in such a rush to start making music that the first time they played, they realized they had forgotten drumsticks. “We went outside and got huge sticks off of a tree branch,” Williamson said. These days, they play under the name Paducah and their music has become more sophisticated, especially with the addition of bassist Garin Kessler ’14. When asked to describe the type of music they play, Fainberg qualified his answer by noting how much the band’s sound has changed since their first year: “We started off playing … really drawn out psychedelic rock, to punk where our longest song was a minute and forty five seconds long.” Today, the band describes their sound as “pretty driving, heavy stuff: really, really noisy.” This new post- punk/hardcore identity fits well with the shows that Paducah is playing this semester. The band will open for Iceage/Wet Hair on April 6 and METZ on May 9. Both shows will be at Gardner. In addition to performing in Grinnell, the band hopes to play a few house shows in Iowa City and once again be a part of the Mission Creek Festival, also in Iowa City. Paducah is perhaps most widely known around campus for their raucous, absurd video for the song Kidnappings. Filmed in the basement of the off-campus house known last year as The Zoo, the video features several people in the nude, except for animal masks, taking sledgehammers to various pieces of electronic equipment. When prompted to speak about the video, Williamson, Padmaraj and Fainberg burst into laughter and exchanged knowing looks. “It was fun. It fits Gluestick. I’m not sure if we’d do that again,” Fainberg said. “I think we destroyed a microwave, a chair, and an amp.” Despite the ridiculous nature of the video, the members seemed to agree that it fit their aesthetic at the time. On the subject of Grinnell’s music scene, none of the members were particularly positive about its current state. Williamson said, “Since we were first years here, there’s been a pretty steady decline in the music scene. It seems like fewer people are willing to take chances.” He blames the lack of community in the music scene and deterioration of a do-it-yourself mindset. Padmaraj added that there used to be “a lot more experimental stuff happening.” To tackle this perceived decline, Williamson suggested that people “form more bands … and not be afraid to experiment and not be afraid if people don’t show up to your shows the first few times.” They stressed the importance of showing up to other people’s shows even if you don’t know them in order to promote a positive community built around making music. Paducah released a 7” record entitled The Shakes in 2011 and the full length A Dollar Makes Me Say Yeah in 2012. If students are at all interested in energetic punk music made by people who respect their music and the creative process but don’t take themselves too seriously, or simply want to support local music, check Paducah out.

Faulconer Gallery shelters broken spaces

By Christopher Squier [email protected]

Robert Polidori has been photographing architecture and interiors for the better part of three decades, turning structures into visible records of lived history and human narrative. As a staff photographer for The New Yorker, the French Canadian has done his fair share of country-hopping, traveling the globe in his search to document the undocumented and record the deteriorating remains of disaster. Photo by Saw Min Maw

This Friday, Grinnell’s Faulconer Gallery will open the first full-career survey of Polidori’s work to be shown in the , exhibiting pieces on Hurricane Katrina, Havana, Beirut, Chernobyl and the opulent French palace of Versailles.

Greeted at the entrance by an eerie cavalcade of destruction and abandonment, the show runs the gamut from natural to nuclear disaster. Uncannily empty photographs echo, one after another, the deserted places. Left in limbo by their abandonment, the sites of Katrina and Chernobyl encapsulate their respective times of disaster and panic. They are shown as if frozen in Polidori’s snapshots.

“Not much has been done to the [Chernobyl] facilities, other than the fact that they have been deteriorating over time,” said Daniel Strong, Faulconer Gallery Curator. “This is the way they were left when people evacuated.” The exhibition places the two events in parallel; opposite one another in a face-off, the ten photographs per wall create an aisle of unexpected intensity. The large-scale photographs exude a holding power, fastening the eyes to their scenes of devastation and deterioration.

On one wall, a Ukrainian classroom from Kindergarten #7 in Pripyat—within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, also known as the zone of alienation—is shown in complete disarray. Desk drawers and school chairs are broken and thrown about the room. Green paint peels off the far wall, crumbling around the edges of a chalkboard bearing a final message and the date 28 April 1986. Diagonally opposite this piece is 6328 North Miro Street of New Orleans. The four-post, wooden bed, still decorated with stylized pineapple ornamentation, is the same crumbling ash- gray as the curtains behind the headboard, while a torn poster clings to the far wall and a pair of still-lacey curtains screen the light streaming in through the window. Apart from the remnants, the room is trashed, mud and detritus making the space unnavigable.

Despite the often-catastrophic subject matter, Polidori’s pieces are beautifully photographed. Vibrant colors and complicated composition present the grittiness and texture of places so recently inhabited.

In another series of photos featuring the Lebanese Civil War and the resulting bombed structures, Beirut’s walls become gaping windows, serving as compositional portals to outside spaces. In one of these photographs, focusing on the Samir Geagea Headquarters, a concentric series of doors lead into the distance, while a vividly oxidizing yellow wall foregrounds the majority of the space in the photograph.

“The people of Beirut actually don’t want these buildings torn down, because for them, it’s part of their history,” Strong said. “There are buildings like this that are occasionally being lived in, but also being left as is, because this is part of the story of Beirut.”

Almost all of Polidori’s pieces have a stillness to them, both as a result of their subject matter and their expert artistic creation. These pieces provide a space for contemplation, portraying the ruins of derelict structures to an audience physically removed from them, either by distance or, more often, by the forces of nature and of politics.

“What [Polidori] is interested in is these places as habitats at one point, now left with all the traces of the people who used to live there,” Strong said.

Since 1983, Polidori has additionally been photographing the backrooms, storage areas, and moments of conservation of the palace of Versailles. As a major tourist attraction, the image of Versailles is presented as the palace was 200 years ago, stuck in a time capsule-like illusion.

“This ancient palace is being presented as timeless and untouched, but actually you can see [otherwise],” Strong said, “This, to me, is a curatorial insider’s view. This is the other side of how we deal with art…you see them devoid of all of the value and glamour that is attached to them in a gallery.”

From this series, the poster child photograph of the exhibition—and the piece that Grinnell College actually owns—shows Callet’s portrait of King Louis XVI sitting sideways on an easel, presumably for conservation purposes. The famous monarch is staring skyward. Another photograph shows Jacques-Louis David’s famous Death of Marat down off the wall, propped up with wooden wedges.

Here again, Polidori’s concept of space and composition is hard to ignore. Echoing Old Master paintings, from Vermeer’s The Music Lesson or The Art of Painting to Goya’s Las Meninas, emphasized by Versailles’ opulent curtains, floor tiling and wall paneling.

“It’s visually stunning, it’s moving, it’s beautiful,” said Tilly Woodward, Faulconer Outreach Curator. “The way that he uses the structure of architecture to think through the structure of memory or how that captures memory of human experience—I think he’s brilliant in how he uses ideas and his medium together.”

Overall, Polidori’s retrospective provides an excellent opportunity for a visual understanding of disaster, exposing often unlooked at locations in exquisite detail.

“What I like about them is the fact that they are portraits of spaces,” Strong said. “He considers them portraits that allude to the people that live in them or use them or reuse them. Going into these spaces…essentially, as he says, he’s posing a question and the answer that you get is a photograph.”

In addition to the show itself, Faulconer will be hosting a series of accompanying programs, including an improvisational and dynamic concert responding to the exhibition, a community day involving cake-eating and extravagant wig-making, and a talk by the 2012 Grinnell Prize-winners Jacob Wood and William McNulty of Team Rubicon.