The plaza is the center of public life at UCI.  On some days, it can be fairly quiet, whereas on others, it becomes “Main Street,” lined with the canopies and tables of itinerant merchants, advocates of diverse causes and religions, and dozens of student clubs, extending for three-hundred yards along the pedestrian road that passes through it.  Frank Cancian, anthropology professor emeritus and documentary photographer, has spent the last year capturing photos of these activities and will be showcasing them in an up-coming exhibit at the Irvine Fine Arts Center.

“Main Street UCI”
Photo exhibit featuring the work of Frank Cancian, UCI Anthropology Professor Emeritus

Public Opening and Reception
September 30, 2011
5:00-8:00 p.m.
Irvine Fine Arts Center (14321 Yale Ave, Irvine, Calif – located in Heritage Park)

The exhibit will remain on display through October 29 in Gallery 1.

About the exhibit:
In February 2009, after lunch with a friend, anthropologist and documentary photographer Frank Cancian stopped in the plaza at the University of California, Irvine to take pictures of a student campaigning for homecoming queen.  Two weeks later, he found traveling evangelists in the plaza and photographed them and the students interacting with them.  About seventy-five photo sessions later (including two in 2011) his files included more than three thousand photos of life on what he calls “Main Street UCI.”  The photographs on display feature four groups: Protests, Along the Street, Play and Performance, and God.

About the photographer:
Frank Cancian’s photo projects include work among Italian peasant farmers in Lacedonia, Avellino (1957), and two books, Another Place: Photographs of a Maya Community, (1974) done in Zinacantan, Chiapas, Mexico, and Orange County Housecleaners, (2006) done with seven women working in Irvine, Laguna Beach, and Newport Beach. He was a professor of anthropology at UCI from 1976 to 1999 and is now a professor emeritus. His photo website is: www.frankcancian.net.