Lingua’s Pop Up Art Gallery features student talents
A pop-up gallery revels in spontaneity and immediacy; a quick snapshot into complex operations.
Senior Lauren Olson, editor of SPU’s Lingua, finds value in pop-ups, because they help establish an artistic community wherever they spring up.
She believes in creating “space where artists can engage, connect, and for [people] to have an outlet of expression.”
At SPU, she hopes that pop-up galleries will help instill within students the confidence to share their art. It is important to “find a space where they feel comfortable with themselves at SPU,” Olson said.
Senior Hannah Hislop, design editor for Lingua, can attest to the welcoming spirits of the arts.
Being part of the Lingua team gave her a way to be involved in an art-centered student leadership position while serving a community that has helped her find her voice.
“Sometimes as a queer student I don’t feel like I belong at SPU, in particular settings,” she said. “I do, however, very much feel like I belong in the creative community here, and the art center has been a safe place.”
The Student Union Building’s gazebo room was cleared on Wednesday, Jan. 17, to make way for SPU artists such as Hislop at Lingua’s “Pop Up Art Gallery.”
Juniors Harper Steinbach, Sam Trevino and Landan Earley had the opportunity to present their work alongside videographers Hislop, junior Geneva Lehnert and senior Julianne Cubacub.
Steinbach used an old closet door and an old cutting board as her two mediums.
“I just walk around and find things that people have thrown away and decide to use them because I think they are beautiful textures to work with,” Steinbach said.
In one of her pieces, Steinbach was inspired by a friend of hers who had graduated from SPU. She found meaning in the confidence her friend embodied.
“I really love working with confident women and I think she was confident in ways that we don’t usually expect from feminine presenting people,” Steinbach said. “I also thought she was a confident member of the queer community at SPU. I liked her energy.”
During the pop-up gallery Steinbach welcomed guests over to a small corner table where she did illustrations of them in the caricature style.
She loves talking to people as she draws and is interested in how people react to different styles.
“I think Lingua helps showcase student art that isn’t design. Pop-ups like this emphasizes the quality of artists we have at SPU,” Steinbach said.
A projection slideshow was set up along the back wall of the SUB, featuring six student made videos on loop.
The pieces were made during an experimental video class in the fall of 2017.
Students were able to integrate original footage they shot themselves with footage from open source websites.
Hislop decided to focus her project on her own gender and titled her video “A Meditation of Womanhood.”
“I used some home videos. I used text as my main source of narrative, instrumental music, very contemplative and meditative,” Hislop said. “I look at the home videos and remember how free I was from societal expectations. I asked myself, who am I if I am not [what society pegs a woman to be].”
One of Lingua’s main goals in hosting a pop-up gallery is for the space to be open for all students to interact and collaborate artistically; however, Olson acknowledges the challenges in reaching students outside the arts department.
“It’s hard to be comfortable enough to present [your work],” Olson said. “There are many students from outside departments that do art, whether that be poetry or painting. Everyone has their different styles.”
Lingua puts out a quarterly zine to allow students to present their work in a professional platform as part of a quarterly effort to engage with the entirety of SPU.
Poetry in the fall zine, which were distributed at the pop-up gallery, showcases a variety of students of different majors.
“We’re trying to get a wider reach of students,” Olson said. “Anyone can submit their work.”
The deadline to submit to the Winter Zine is Friday, Feb. 16.
