The Guggenheim’s fall 2007 exhibit Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945 revealed a growing fascination with photography in Central Europe between the two World Wars. As photography gained respect as an artistic medium and became more widely available to the general public, photographers (both professional and amateur) recorded their changing lives in a turbulent era.

After visiting and discussing Foto, a group of high school photographers from the New York City area picked up their digital cameras, and set out to photograph their own environments. The project began with students identifying salient elements of their surroundings—elements that they wanted to point out to others. They then set out to target those elements in their pictures. Final projects took the form of a series of separate images or a single digital collage, with themes ranging from urban recreation to the recognition of street vendors to the way in which fashion defines a generation.

This website displays the work of all workshop participants. Click on any of the links above to see the photographs. Enjoy!

For information about the Guggenheim’s upcoming programs for high school students, visit www.publicandartist.org or write to teenprograms@guggenheim.org.