About this story
We had the opportunity to talk to design lecturer and artist and teacher assistant and designer,, who together taught Design 15: Form and Color two consecutive quarters, helping create two student projects — Project: Hope and Black Lives Matter.
We also had a conversation with students whose works were included in the books.
The current exhibition at the Barn Gallery in Woodland features Project: Hope and Black Lives Matter, two books compiled in a collaboration of 43 ÍêÃÀÌåÓý students in Design 15: Form and Color.
Art. In. Action honors Black women heroes, civil rights leaders, and women who have been killed by police. Presented in the form of two books Project: Hope, and Black Lives Matter, give insight as to how students can take action through art. They visually communicate their hopes for the future and amplify Black stories as well as bring the Black Lives Matter movement to the forefront.
The exhibition of both ÍêÃÀÌåÓý-created books is on view through June 19, closing with a Juneteenth freedom celebration that day from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Class, over two quarters, produced projects
Design 15: Form and Color is the name of the class that aims to go beyond composition and color theory, providing students with the opportunity to visually communicate their personal narratives. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuation of the Black Lives Matter movement, students had plenty to say. As a project-oriented class, lecturer Melissa Chandon gave her students the option to participate in two projects that later became the books Project: Hope and Black Lives Matter, she explained.
As a foundation studio course required for all design majors, Design 15 brought in not only students beginning their journey into the department, but also individuals from all majors and backgrounds. In a normal setting, all 50 students would be in one room, working together as the professor and teaching assistant engage in the process of the student’s work. This all changed when ÍêÃÀÌåÓý went fully remote in spring quarter 2020.
Students and instructors alike found themselves in a virtual space, with only their mandatory course kits of art supplies to remind them of the feeling of being in a studio class.
'Black Lives Matter'
The book Black Lives Matter includes the works of 21 students who took Design 15 in spring 2020. As the final project for the course, Chandon gave her students the option to create a work of art as a way to respond to what was happening with Black Lives Matter.