??Rice Project Spotlight: Campuswide art initiative encourages student art appreciation

By Farrah Madanay     2/14/12 6:00pm

Art has pervaded the bottom floor hallway of Fondren Library in the form of multi-colored post-it notes. These post-it notes mark an interactive publicity campaign for a call to submit art of all forms — studio art, film, photography, sculpture, performance, and fashion — to the upcoming celebrateART festival, which will take place on  March 9. The prompts, first "How are you feeling today?" and now "What does the world need more of?" have invited post-it note responses varying from a drawing of a gorilla to a witty cartoon of Homer Simpson. These responses support exactly why Martel College junior Melissa Teng and Brown College junior Raquel Perez have applied for an Envision Grant to host a campus-wide arts festival: Rice University students are creative, they just lack a means of expression.

"We want celebrateART to be an outlet for all majors, like the bioengineer who paints in between problem sets, the econ major who shoots short films during weekends, or the pre-med who took AP Studio Art in high school," Teng, a Visual and Dramatic Arts major said.

Teng and Perez, an Art History major, have recruited a team of over 50 art enthusiasts to help them realize their vision of a student-led art festival that will reinvigorate artistic creativity on campus and restore the balance of science, letters and art, as articulated on the Rice seal. The two have been awarded an Envision Grant of $1,600 for their upstart.

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"We are working very hard to ensure that this is sustainable and want to place heavy focus on ensuring the festival can be funded and organized each year for years to come," Perez, knowing the Envision Grant is only a one time allocation, said.

The eight celebrateART committees have been planning the festival for months, collaborating with student businesses and organizations to make March 9 a huge, all-day event. Under the guidance of University Art Director Molly Hubbard, Teng and Perez envision the festival to function as a catalyst to raise awareness for the arts on campus.

"Ideally, we want to see more creative collaborations, including more a capella groups, performance groups, group art exhibitions, group installations around campus, and at the very least, better designed posters," Teng said.

The festival will include both juried and non-juried exhibits, with the juried exhibits offering cash prizes for the "Best of" winners. Though Teng and Perez encourage VADA and Architecture majors to submit their work, they said they want to emphasize that all students, regardless of major, can participate. The pair plan for March 9 to be a day that music and theater acts take over the central quad, studio art decorates the walls of the RMC, a fashion show invades Willy's pub and an art market showcases large bodies of student artwork.

Teng and Perez welcome both undergraduate and graduate participation in order to create a holistically creative atmosphere on campus. Rice alumni and students alike are invited to participate in student-led tours of Rice public art and engage in interactive art contests. Today is the last day to submit art to the celebrateART festival. To learn more about the festival, follow the Facebook page "CelebrateART Festival" or join "celebrateART 2012" on OWL-Space.

 Project Spotlight highlights the various projects and passions of Rice students. To suggest email Farrah at flm1@rice.edu.

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