Meta Specter
Savannah Calhoun
April 4-May 15, 2025
Opening Reception: April 4, 6-9pm
Free and open to the public
Aurora PhotoCenter, Efroymson Gallery
1125 Brookside Avenue, Suite C9, Indianapolis
Savannah Calhoun mines 80s and 90s pop culture to evoke an uneasy sense of nostalgia in her series Meta Specter. Bright gradients, checkerboard patterns, palm trees straight from the set of Miami Vice, and compact disks float across the glossy surface of Calhoun’s large-scale collages and photo murals. These blasts from the past recall a supposedly simpler time, one lived by some and seen by others in Stranger Things, a time without cell phones and ubiquitous screens.
Over her nostalgic visuals, Calhoun layers images of the philosopher Plato, who warned against the sway of illusion and false argument, creating the central tension of the work: Those who can be persuaded away from the truth can be manipulated. Using lighting and color configurations reminiscent of commercial product photography, Calhoun’s Meta Specter resonates with America’s current moment and rhetoric that sells an idealized version of the Reagan Era as a political and cultural ideal, ignoring the injustices and unrest of the time. Disappearing into a fantastically perfected past makes it more likely that we can be pacified by an equally false present and future narrative.
About her work, Calhoun writes, “Meta Specter examines a space of temporariness and, ultimately, death within photography. With death also comes haunting, and the term "hauntology" refers to the return or persistence of elements from the social or cultural past, as in the manner of a ghost. This idea is heavily tied to nostalgia, and as an instrument of the past, photography resonates well with it. The idea of being “haunted” by something can be compared to media repeating itself. In a society plagued by late-stage capitalism, we yearn for a utopian society that never came to manifest in the 21st century. Technology has become a source of harvesting data for profit rather than a tool to unite and connect people. Formerly optimistic about the future, it has not shaped itself the way that we used to believe it would, and the things we used to believe would save us are now a source of monotony."
Savannah Calhoun’s Meta Specter reminds us that escaping the echo chamber of nostalgia and technology might be the most important disruption of our time, one that gets us back to a better future.
Savannah Calhoun (she/her) is an image-based artist who focuses on post-internet art and nostalgia. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries including Ohio University Art Galleries in Athens, OH, Gallery 924 in Indianapolis, IN, Glasgow Gallery of Photography in Glasgow, Scotland, George Caleb Bingham Gallery in Columbia, MO, Columbia Art League in Columbia, MO, Sheldon Galleries in St. Louis, MO, and others. She received a BFA in Photography at Herron School of Art and Design and an MFA at the University of Missouri. She lives and works in Muncie, Indiana where she is a photography technician at Ball State University.
Annual operating support for Aurora PhotoCenter provided by the City of Indianapolis through the Indy Arts Council. Additional annual support provided by the Efroymson Family Fund, Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Inc., Aurora Members, and donors who believe in Aurora’s mission.