This year at DU, a variety of people got together to create the first student run art group on campus (different than ISMS by being completely organized, developed, run, and headed by students). This group is a kind of convergence by bringing in not only the visual art students, but also kids involved in theatre, performance, design and music. Any one is welcome, so long as they are interested in participating in an installation each quarter. The group began as Artists of DU and has transformed into IRIS (Imagination with Reason by Inspired Students). This was the first quarter, and I was lucky to be a part of the installation revolving around the theme Power. One memorable piece was a performance of reading out loud mini-feed updates on Facebook, looking at how we present ourselves to each other online, and how accessible our information is to everyone. A notable collaboration piece was a graffiti wall that was covered over and over throughout the day, inviting people walking around campus to add to it. You can check out the progress of the wall through the day on Drew's Flickr page.
In relation to our current discussion in class, there was a question of 'freedom of speech' at one point when someone had tagged "fuck" on the wall- a suit and tie DU associate came and warned us that 'some people were worried' about the language. I imagine they didn't want anything on campus to reflect poorly on our university. Luckily for him, we had already redone that area of the wall, so it was no longer an issue. I wonder if he would've made us change it on the spot if it had still been around?
If any of you are interested in joining this group, check out the IRIS link through Facebook, and you can help on this coming quarter!
4 comments:
I walked past the exhibit and I enjoyed it. I just felt that it would have been beneficial to have posters up telling students about it, facebook flyers, or signs right next to the exhibit explaining what was going on. Its possible that I could have missed the signs but I was looking for an explanation.
Great to know about!
jaimie! thanks for posting this article. i walked by it but didn't stop (intimidated by the combination of a bull horn and serious art students around lol) but i think it is still awesome that there is a student art collective that is really producing on campus. i had no idea that they were reading facebook updates as part of a performance piece, that is brillant! good work yo!
I saw this and I was so curious what it was about! Good point about the free speech. But I liked how you guys took the responsibility to fix it!
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