Snapshots: Students Create, Explore Community Art Themes
The KEYS 4018 class’ plaster hand art, which signifies negative and positive experiences, are are displayed in Emerson Library on the fourth floor.
Students and faculty developed two simultaneous community-driven artistic events as the keystone seminar, “Plays, Concerts, and Inks: Encountering Art in Our Community” (KEYS 4018) taught by Doug Finlayson and Robin Assner.
Both events revolve around the theme of letting go of negatives and holding onto positives within one’s life. One project used hands as a metaphor within the cathartic community event. The project invited students, faculty, and staff to come decorate one plaster hand with fears, emotions, situations, etc. which they feel are holding the back, along with a second plaster hand, decorated with relationships, situations, and experiences they want to hold on to. These hands are displayed in Emerson Library on the fourth floor.
For the week after the installation of the project, bowls were set around the library and people were invited to write down thoughts and experiences they wished to let go of. These slips of paper were then burned in a private releasing ceremony.
Students explored how a community is reflected in art and how its arts strengthen that community and developed an awareness of what kinds of artistic efforts exist in a particular community.
Students in the KEYS 4018 course explored the questions surrounding what defines art and community.
Burning slips of paper at the private releasing ceremony.
Category: Faculty, Student Affairs and News
