An international photography exhibition showcased work by students of the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD) and held a panel to review their creative contributions.

Student images on display in Exposure, the largest photography festival in the world, featured the role artificial intelligence (AI) plays in shaping contemporary arts.

Held in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the exhibition was an opportunity for students to display and review the impact AI is exerting on modern photography.

Exposure's 7th edition was held from 9-15 February 2023.

Student images exhibited in the festival strived to unravel how far AI has reshaped contemporary arts including visualized music, staged photography, and sound installations.

One striking photo by alumna Khoula Hamad was a challenge as it aimed to inspire viewers to take a moment and ponder about societal stereotypes. The photo has the power to tell us that women are much more than their physical features.

Among the CFAD exhibits was a three-minute video by Hamda Al Thani. The video comprised solely of portraits of 36 different people.

The people in Al Thani's video speak but its only one short sentence which they utter: “I am Hamda". The utterance is Al Thani's voice.

It is not easy to fathom what message Hamda intended to deliver by having all the 36 figures in her video uttering the same phrase, but in her own voice.

Asked to elaborate, she said online spaces could be a source of inspiration and escape, but they at the same time could be dangerous because the possibility is always there for someone to steal your identity.

CFAD's short videos on display in Exposure this year revealed AI's unique power to reshape identity due to the new emerging social spheres and spaces it creates and their impact on modern art.

For instance, alumna Niza Anfaz's video captured moments to distil vital themes and invite reflection.

There was a touch of philosophical deliberations in her work as she tried to delve into the issues of identity in a digitized and AI-dominated world. She brought to the fore the crucial issue of whether the identity documents we carry were representative of who we are.

“My identity documents [used to] defined my identity," she said.

However, and in the AI age, according to Anfaz, our passports, for instance, no longer look like actual passports. For her, the passport she carries is “emblematic" of her attempt to find who she is.

Travel documents, added Anfaz, restricted her as she moved from one country to another. The documents, she emphasized, were not truly representative of her.

CFAD's contribution to this year's Exposure festival was not limited to artwork. CFAD faculty held a panel titled 'Realms of the Experimental,' in which lecturers Tor Seidel and Julian Stone discussed the role of visual communication in capturing images.

There are “no limits to expression" in conceptual photography, said Seidel. “Working conceptually means going through the whole ideation process – developing an idea, making fundamental research, writing a script and artist statement, drawing a storyboard."

Conceptual photography means “working out a production plan and, of course, learning how to use the photography, lighting, studio, video, and audio equipment," he added.

Stone said the primary goal of visual communicators and artists should be to “engage an audience and cut through the visual noise in the background in a forest of visual communication."

Seidel's students attended the panel and took part in the discussions.

Xposure hosts annual exhibitions from highly acclaimed international photographers, professional institutes, and galleries across the world.

“The exhibition of selected projects at Xposure forms an interface between university education and the site of interaction both in public and in the context of the exhibiting photographers," according to Xposure's official website.