Interdisciplinary Studies student Amisha Gopee's (Tandon '24, XE '26) exhibit South Asians @ Poly/Tandon explores the history of South Asian students attending the former Brooklyn Polytechnic (currently Tandon) and the clubs they formed. This physical exhibit is an evolution of the Amisha's online exhibit South Asians @ Poly/NYU (2024). This updated iteration acknowledges that following the 2014 merger with NYU, Poly was re-named for two South Asian philanthropists, Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon.
The exhibit includes a particular focus on the South Asian Student Association (SASA) of the 1990s and early 2000s and the events they held, as depicted in the school yearbook, The Polywog. Amisha's exhibit mirrors this source material of the yearbook, highlighting the senior photos of South Asian students over time, as well as bringing to life the Bollywood dances these students performed on campus by displaying the black and white yearbook photo alongside the full color clip of the associated movie scene.
The front of the Dibner Library exhibit case features a yearbook-style grid of South Asian students from different graduating class on the left and right. In the middle of the case, a TV screen plays a clip of a Bollywood movie alongside the still images of students recreating the dance, as depicted in the yearbook. Polywog yearbooks from various years are positioned below the TV screen.
The title screen of the moving images in the exhibit reads "Who Says Engineers Can't Dance?" a reference to the 2005 yearbook spread featuring images from SASA's annual Saregama event. Saregama was named for the four standard notes comprising the Indian musical octave: Sa Re Ga Ma.
Amisha gave her exhibit research talk on September 18, 2025. Tandon students, faculty, and outside visitors gathered over Indian food (provided by Brooklyn mainstay Curry Heights).
Amisha Gopee (TANDON '24, XE '26), Poly Archives Student Curator, Fall 2025
Panels from Pranaya's exhibit (Dibner Library, Spring 2025) and research talk (Wunsch Hall, February 2025)
Pranaya presenting her research in Wunsch Hall (left) and a screenshot from her Instagram interview about her project (right).
Installed as a permanent exhibit, Ethan Vazquez's (Tandon '25) exploration of Golana, a sci-fi magazine created by Polytechnic students in the 1960s and 1970s, showcases original artwork and aims to inspire creativity in our Tandon engineers. See Ethan's online exhibit here: Creative Chronicles: Unveiling the Legacy of Golana at Polytechnic. You can watch Poly Archivist Lindsay Anderberg talk about the exhibit on Dibner Library's Instagram page. This exhibit is on display on the 3rd floor of Dibner Library, in the main reading room.
Image of Golana No. 9, Fall 1967 (Poly Archives).