“The group projects can be challenging as the students deal with time constraints and differences in personality,” Lehman said.
The central objective of the project is to encourage students to explore and learn from other cultures outside of the classroom while gaining hands-on leadership experience.
Sam Bey, Logan Miller and Elizabeth Fine, three students from Lehman’s class this year decided to organize a gallery showcasing a cultural perspective of international exploration.
“We wanted to learn about different cultures and we all enjoy artwork,” explained Bey, a sophomore in biology and an honors student. “It was a good way to talk about issues and perspectives we haven’t all been exposed to.”
The event consisted of a gallery display of around two dozen works of art by 15 different artists.
The pieces ranged from material sculptures to oil paintings. There were several sketches and watercolors. One artist submitted an original musical composition. Another created fine cultural jewelry.
“I’m glad to be here,” said Dante, one of the contributing artists and a sophomore in architecture. Dante submitted a small collection of multimedia artworks exhibiting his experience as a Mexican-American college student. “I like to express my thoughts about equality and I love expressing myself in artwork … it’s the only way I get to say what I feel.”
The student organizers wanted “to get artists interested in [their] idea … to expose culture through artistic expression,” said Millar, who is a sophomore in multidisciplinary design at the college of architecture.
Attendees had the opportunity to vote for their favorite pieces. The top three winners received prizes of $75, $50 and $25. The competition was intended as a means of giving back to the contributors and getting feedback from the general public on “what impacted them most,” according to Fine, a junior double majoring in French and Chemistry in addition to being an honors student.
The submissions explored, exposed and exhibited a variety of cultures and perspectives. Different pieces touched on controversial topics like politics, religion, drugs, depression and the environment.
The top three winning works were announced at the end of the two-hour event.
Claiming third-place was Chloe Betts’ political caricature of president-elect Donald Trump dressed as a Catholic Pope entitled “Church and State.” Second-place went to “Inversion,” a photograph submitted by Joseph Blanton about climate change and the environment of politics. Finally, the winner of the competition was Lucy Le Bohec’s “Oil on Panel,” a portrait of her bicultural experience and ambiguity of self-identity.
The event was held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 21 in the lobby space of the Aline Skaggs Biology building.