Experience Moyer Project builds campus community
Time travel, Caveman Spongebob and Year 3000. All of these and more were included in this year’s Experience Moyer Project.
Experience Moyer Project, otherwise known as EMP, is an event held every year in which the residents of Moyer Hall gather together to put on an exhibition of their floors. This year’s EMP was held on Saturday, Feb. 17 with exhibitions beginning at 7 in the evening.
The event encourage students to walk through the halls of Moyer, which are each decorated with their own unique theme. Additionally, the EMP features a student talent show in which students from all around campus can perform.
Each floor of Moyer is assigned a category by the Moyer Hall Council to decorate their floors under one broad, overarching theme. The theme this year was time travel. The first floor of Moyer represented the past, the third floor was the present, and second was the future.
On each floor, residents of Moyer could express their ideas however they chose within the guidelines of the theme they were given. Many showed a great deal of creativity with the event.
Upon entrance into Moyer, attendees were encouraged to grab a snack and begin their journey through time. Starting in the past, the dimly lit first floor of Moyer included everything from “Caveman Spongebob and Patrick” to “Back to the Future” themed signs.
The present, or second floor of Moyer, played host to an assortment of pop-culture references, spanning from the early 2000s to now. Standing alone from the decorations on the walls, recreations of La Croix cans hung from the walls along with hand made signs for Trader Joe’s quinoa, epitomizing Seattle Pacific “hipster” food culture.
In other rooms participants could guess vine references via picture puzzles, explore a room of memes, cartoons from their childhood and 2012 conspiracy theories with the use of the Mayan Calendar and a sign leaning against piles of canned food reading: “Do not take, rations for apocalypse.”
The future included references to many popular TV shows and movies including “Wall-E,” “The Hunger Games” and “Star Trek.” This floor also included the album cover of
“Year 3000” by the Jonas Brothers, which was a hit across the board.
After taking a journey through time, attendees were encouraged to stay for the Talent show. The eight acts of the night included student covers of songs by Fleet Foxes, original poetry and spoken word on the struggles of autoimmune diseases.
In the poetry, Destinee Nelons and Jacob Calton discussed the pressures of college saying,
“There is grace, you just need to let yourself have a little bit of it.”
For the students performing, the talent show was not about winning or proving something to the audience. Rather, it was about having fun with the people they care about and demonstrating their skills for the pleasure of those who came.
The whole experience was pressure-free for performers and spectators alike. There was no rush to get through each room. Participants could unwind with their friends, while lazily making a voyage through time, and even take a break for refreshments.
This light-hearted atmosphere at the EMP allowed for viewers to take what they wanted for them, and thus provided a means for people to let their guards down, and just enjoy the company of one another.
The EMP has proved a positive way to improve connections throughout the campus by bringing students together in a collaborative, creative way.