Renee's Trifold Gallery, Intervention 1

Trifold Gallery, Social Post, and Poster

Trifold Gallery in the Visual Arts Building 1st Floor 

 The Trifold Gallery is an interactive intervention created to survey the socio-political awareness of the NJCU campus, along with some outside responses. The gallery is on a poster board where participants are encouraged to draw on post-it notes and provide an activist cause. In the few moments they spend doodling, they are actively thinking about activist causes at the back of their mind. The project started on Thursday with post-it notes; I went around to classmates with who I engaged in conversation before presenting them with the project. Sometimes they would ask what kind of politics I wanted, and I emphasized how it could be any activist cause they deemed significant in their lives. Participants provided important causes such as gun violence, environmental issues, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, mental health, abortion rights, and many more. These are all causes people are aware of; I also received one for deaf accessibility and another post-it note speaking for the accurate cultural representation of Brazil. On Tuesday, when the university was remote, I decided to expand this project online, where I received outside responses that I interpreted in doodles, such as the Russian corruption post-it note. This expanded my survey sample outside of the NJCU campus, but overall, the responses I have so far are based on college students' perspectives. While the project fostered the participants' creativity, it was also research for my future project.

I based this intervention on Alfredo Jarr's twenty-four-hour museum, where he invited townspeople to hang up their art. The Art of Activism states, "some projects are tied tightly to campaigns, while others skirt on the edges of what we traditionally think of as politics: raising questions, opening spaces, and providing perspectives" ( Ducombe, Lambert, 2021, pg.43). With the Trifold gallery I aimed to raise individual awareness about activists projects and provide a space for people to share their artwork and perspectives. While this project is not solely focused on one particular socio-political cause, it can be a part of a greater campaign that can be worked on for my second intervention. Regarding research, The Art of Activism states, "Research provides content for our work, we find insights and inspiration in everything." ( Ducombe, Lambert, 2021, pg.62). In this case, I was engaging with other people and inviting them to open up about activists' causes. In these conversations, I learned a lot about the individual and what my peers care about most politically.

Duncombe, S., & Lambert, S. (2021). The Art of Activism: Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible [Book]. OR Books.

Participant!