Just another typical day at the Duke Arts Festival:
“So, what’s your vision for next year’s festival?” I ask the Visual Arts Showcase curator Justin Sandulli after the exhibition's opening reception. Before Justin can answer, a question arises from one of the many circulating DUU Arts students.
“Wait, do we need to cover up the pianos for the night?”
The moment is wonderful for me, as it speaks to one of the Arts Festival’s signatures–the beautiful, whimsical hand-painted pianos at the West Campus bus stop, as well as the incredible amount of work put in by VisArts and DUU Arts students for this year's festival. They’re especially commendable since this year’s Duke Arts Festival, which runs from the 29th to the 4th, is completely student-run for the first time in its history.
This semester, we’ve already seen a wave of new arts projects and groups, from arts and media career consulting to the #Artstigators initiative, a supremely cool, slightly mysterious team of “Crazies for the Arts” (to all Artstigators out there, I humbly ask: how do I become you?). Though this may seem like art for art’s sake, I believe these initiatives, especially the Duke Arts festival, speak to us on a personal level, whether or not we identify as artists.
As much as we say Duke is a land of people in love with their resumes, where you’re likely to hear things like “my pivotal role in international development” while in line for coffee, much of this is merely posturing, or, as I like to think about it, the consequence of good people reading too many career center brochures. Yet, after four years at Duke, these sound bytes eventually all fade to background noise and I’m left with the opposite emotion. I don’t know enough about the accomplishments of those around me, from my occasional acquaintances to even my closest friends. While we hide our struggles under the guise of effortless perfection, we also hide what we’re most passionate about--the focused interests that either don’t make good conversation or end up in one short “Hobbies” line at the bottom of a resume.
Of course, it’s romantic to say things like, “in some lonely fourth-floor dorm room, there’s a painting that will blow your mind," or "the guy next to you on the bus is composing songs," or "your study partner is thinking about poetry as much as physics,” but ultimately it’s just not very helpful. We need to bring these things into the open, because in the broadest sense, they save us from our small perspectives. They are therapeutic through the beauty and complexity of art.
For example, during the past few years, Duke’s social justice organizations have used a variety of mediums from spoken word to theater and photography, in order to powerfully emphasize everything left unsaid on campus. The popularity of these projects speaks to our desire for connections, for art that challenges and heals by articulating our classmates’ experiences. Though the Duke Arts Festival doesn’t immediately fall under the category of arts activism, while walking through the Visual Arts exhibit, I couldn’t help but remember events like the Me Too Monologues. We create spaces like MTM for our struggles, not only because it is so difficult to acknowledge them in our everyday interactions, but also because we yearn to find connections. Yet, I think that as much as we transform the worst moments of our lives into powerful art, we also need spaces for celebration–joy, curiosity, the brilliance of self-expression–because these parts of our lives often go equally unexpressed.
Most of all, we need to acknowledge that each individual student experiences both extremes and that our campus does too. While the Visual Arts showcase sweeps me away, I can’t help but remember the Bryan Center’s previous student exhibition, last spring’s Breaking Out photography gallery, which told the stories of survivors of sexual assault. I think, more than anything, this juxtaposition proves a natural, yet often forgotten point: Duke’s survivors, whatever forces them to be strong, are also creating beautiful things. I’d say “me too” for all of the works hanging in the Bryan Center. I’d say it to the girl at the bus stop, playing show tunes for the kids waiting for the C-2 in the dark.
Over the next few days, you can go to the Nasher party Thursday night and show Sabrosura and Dhamaka how you move (or maybe how you don’t move, so they can kindly take you under their guidance). You might be able to spend a Saturday at the Arts Theme House’s Open Studio night or listen to the Takacs Quartet in Baldwin Auditorium or attend the Nelson Music Room recital. Perhaps your involvement will be to watch student films at the Arts of the Moving Image showcase. And you could take time to look at your friends’ artwork or even buy a painting at Friday’s art auction. But, most importantly, be sure to enter the Bryan Center, keep walking and make a sharp left. You won’t forget it.
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