Aidekman aglow with history

Even at an interdisciplinary university, one might think it rare to find both history and art galleries featured together.

The Aidekman Gallery, currently housing two such diverse exhibits proves this assumption to be incorrect.

Two collections, "Another Light on the Hill" and "Common Ground," are on display through Dec 14. By using first-person accounts, press clippings, and simple photographs to preserve their respective snapshots of history, these exhibits create an overall experience, to which the average visitor can relate.

"Another Light on the Hill: A History of Black Undergraduate Students at Tufts" was previously on display in 1988 and 1999, but it has since been expanded upon for the new millennium. It traces African-American students at Tufts all the way back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when Forrester Washington of the class of 1909 became the first known black undergraduate to pass through the university's halls.

Press clippings and athletic photographs make up the majority of the objects on display, with the collection serving as a history of the college as well as recognition of the students who attended it. Articles from the now defunct Tufts Weekly, elaborate covers from the alumni magazine Tuftonian, pictures of drama productions and sporting events, and any number of portraits of matriculating undergraduates trace the paths of the African-American students in a vivid snapshot of the past.

A series of placards that describe the situation of black students for each twenty-year time period are also included alongside the collection. The anecdotes printed on them trace the first black undergraduates from the turn of the century and follow them over the course of the next 100 years, providing the necessary information needed to truly appreciate the rest of the pieces displayed on the walls. The real stories, it seems, are those included in the photographs and news articles, all of which help to bring the past alive in their quest to create a vibrant, tangible history of African American students at Tufts.

The collection currently on display in the Slater Concourse Gallery, also in Aidekman, may have a different subject matter, but it too seeks to bring moments of the past to life. "Common Ground: Photographers on the Street" is a small anthology of just over twenty photographs that trace the phenomenon of street photography from the late 1960's and 1970's to the present day. The pictures here, rather than attempting to capture any pivotal, life-altering epiphanies, do their best to provide a simple portal into the everyday happenings of everyday people as they wander the streets of their respective cities.

Nominally divided into two parts, the exhibit includes a few works from three Vietnam-era photographers juxtaposed with a larger collection of photographs by more contemporary artists. Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, and Joel Meyerowitz capture phone booths and New Year's Eve kisses from thirty years ago, while their modern-day compatriots do the same for lazy afternoons spent on bleachers and graffiti-laden skateboard jumps.

Roswell Angier provides a short study on women's winter coats; Sylvia Plachy studies motion and light in her photograph of swirling raindrops; and Melanie Einzig preserves the real-world aftermath of September 11 alongside a picture of wide-eyed New York City tourists.

"Common Ground's" peek into the past is as intriguing as "Another Light on the Hill", albeit their pasts are surely different. Both exhibits attempt to bring history back to life through vivid mementos and real-world photographs, both offering their viewers something to contemplate.

Whether it is the history of the African American student at Tufts or just a question of what New York City must have looked like thirty years ago, these two collections are notable simply for the effort they make in turning average, everyday history into something that every visitor can relate to.