May at Aurora PhotoCenter starts with the First Friday, May 2nd opening of the exhibition ‘Heart’s Content’ featuring work by the 2025 BFA Photography Seniors from the Herron School of Art & Design at IU Indianapolis. Heart’s Content explores photography’s relationship to identity through a range of processes and media, including photographic collage, lenticular, cyanotype, weaving, and video. With work by Leah Darden, Kayla Harvey, Sarah Montañez-Hidalgo, Sarah McCartney, Emma Seewald, Dee Smith, and Michelle Watson. The exhibition is on view until May 16th.

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In Aurora’s Efroymson Gallery, Savannah Calhoun mines 80s and 90s pop culture to evoke an uneasy sense of nostalgia in her exhibition Meta Specter. The bright gradients, checkerboard patterns, and palm trees straight from the set of Miami Vice ultimately come to symbolize the folly of selling an oversimplified version of the past. Meta Specter reminds us that escaping the echo chamber of nostalgia and technology might be the most important disruption of our time, one that gets us back to a better future. Exhibition runs until May 15th.

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In conjunction with the exhibition Heart’s Content, Herron School of Art & Design senior Leah Darden will host a screening of her short film, I Define Me, on Thursday May 8, 6pm, at Aurora PhotoCenter. Darden writes of the work, “I Define Me is an autobiography styled film showcasing my personal journey in my young adulthood and highlighting black excellence.” Darden will be joined by panelists Chris Smith of 1000 Words Gallery and Indianapolis artist Zola Lamothe for a conversation about major themes of the film.

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Also in May, sign up for one of Aurora’s one-session workshops and learn photo basics like developing film, both black & white and color, and making a black & white print.

For more information on Aurora’s events, exhibitions, and workshops, visit auroraphoto.org.