Photography and Text by Carmen Garcia Gallego
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What do young people think about political candidates? In a social experiment, I walked around the campus of the University of Pennsylvania and asked undergraduate students two simple questions: if the general elections were tomorrow, which candidate would you vote to be the next president of the United States? And secondly, can you do a gesture or a pose that is representative of that candidate? I concluded that young people are really receptive to the bodily cues given by the different candidates- they all had a recognizable pose or some sort of gesture that represented the tone of their campaigns. They were mostly positive, since the people photographed supported the candidate they were trying to mimic, but the poses were very peculiar: The Trump face was angry, cunning, sharp. The Bernie pose hopeful, passionate, empowering. The Hillary face careful, happy, trimmed. The Cruz pose straightforward, bold, stern. The variety of answers and poses showed one very strong conclusion: the youth of America is torn over who to vote for. The current presidential candidates are all so different from each other in their views that it is hard to know which one will prevail. While America’s future may be uncertain, the students most certainly are not. Almost all of the people that I stopped agreed to have their pictures taken and had a political candidate they felt strongly about. The wide array of stances is promising for the future of democracy, as it seems that students’ increasing investment in political discourse will generate a lot of discussion.
About The Author: Carmen Garcia Gallego is a sophomore enrolled in the College of the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2018. To read more articles by Carmen, go here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/carmen-garcia-gallego-timeless-doors/