I wrote the following editorial before spring break, when current conversations were only just beginning. Since there, there have been two racist hate crimes on our campus in the span of four days. The destruction of my art work (which you may read about below) pales in comparison to the hurt, fear and anger other members of our community are currently feeling. As you read the following editorial, please keep this in mind.
On Monday, Mar. 2, I received an email from a project partner in my Design: Object and Environment class. Technically, our project was already finished and on display, so I knew it wasn’t good news for her to be emailing me. And I was right — the email was letting myself and our third partner know that our projects were gone. Completely missing.
Some members of our campus community may be familiar with the cardboard chair project that Professor Andrea Wollensak assigns in this specific class. However, most people probably haven’t seen the chairs because in the past these chairs, which are completely designed and built from scratch by her students, have only been displayed in Cummings, where they have remained respected and untouched. For Professor Wollensak’s class, this year was a year of firsts: the first time the class has partnered with Professor Emily Morash’s Interiors of Connecticut College, the first time the project has used site specificity outside of Cummings, and the first time chairs have been vandalized to the point of complete destruction.
The location our chairs were built to be placed in was the hallway outside of the Academic Resource Center in the Plex, in the hallway between Harris Refractory and Johnson, Wright and Park (before the ARC moved into the new library). My partners and I built three cardboard chairs to be exhibited solely in this location; this is what made them site specific. Extensive historical research and analysis of the site was done by our group, including two students in Professor Morash’s class. This project was no easy undertaking, and represented 15+ hours of work from initial conception to finally bringing the chairs from the studio to their final location. The architectural students designed and printed informative posters about the history of this specific area of the Plex, and my design partners and I also created posters about our chairs, how they fit the space and how they fit each other. Like the chairs, these posters were also destroyed.
I know much has been said about the vandalism that occurs on our campus; Sunday mornings find dorms littered with broken exit signs, cracked paper towel dispensers and more. And as hard as it is for me to wrap my mind around why someone would want to break something that they’re ultimately causing themselves (more likely, however, their peers) to pay for, it’s even harder for me to wrap my mind around why someone would want to destroy something that was so clearly created by hand. There’s nothing funny to be said about this. You broke an exit sign? Fine, brag about it to your friends, and ultimately cause the rest of the dorm to unfairly pay for it. Break three cardboard chairs my partners and I made? Congratulations. You broke folded cardboard.
I know my own chair wasn’t the most stable; it was, after all, made of cardboard. But not only should the fact that the glue was beginning to come off and the pins start to pop out be enough to convince people to not touch it, it was clearly labeled “do not sit on.” Perhaps that’s the most frustrating part of this. I expected people to ignore my request and sit on it, and it was built to withstand a single person respectfully using it. Clearly, however, people didn’t just sit on it. They kicked it, they tore it, they threw all their weight on it. And my partners’ chairs, which were much, much sturdier than mine ever was, were also completely destroyed when they were found in garbage bins. This isn’t just students trying out the chairs. This is a deliberate act of destruction, and an honor code violation. Above it, it’s just disgusting.
As an art student, I rely on my work to be in good condition for my portfolio. Like most students at Conn, I one day hope to be employed, and my art portfolio will inevitably help me get there. Because of the treatment my chair received, I have nothing to show for this project. Sure, I took photos of the chair in progress, but my naivety in trusting that my peers would respect my work got the best of me, and I now have no good quality photos of the project to speak of. This incredibly unique, challenging and rewarding project is now, essentially, useless to me.
Nothing will change what has happened, but to whoever destroyed our chairs, all I ask is this: the next time you have the urge to destroy the creative achievements of your peers, shoot me a text. I have plenty of unused art supplies that I would be more than happy to lend you. You may even find that it’s more enjoyable to create than it is to destroy.
