Semester 4

Arts TRYathlon #1: Choose Your Own Adventure

Gods in Color, Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection (https://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/en/)

#scupltures #antiquity #virtualexibition #inovativecuration

For this Tryathlon, I wanted to explore how art is curated. Particularly, I wanted to explore the curation of art in challenging spaces and how that could help me with my own process for my Capstone. My project, which is a collection of short stories, is already causing me problems, and written work is often notoriously difficult to curate. So, what better way to learn about curating in difficult spaces than visiting virtual art curation spaces? I’ve done a visual art exhibit for a previous Tryathlon, but I didn’t pay attention to how it was presented to tell its story, I was just looking at the pretty art. Particularly, I browsed through exhibitions curated to tell stories because that is the main way I’d like my curation to be presented. My projects are inherently stories that tell a larger story, and it would make sense for them to be curated in such a way. One group of online exhibitions I learned a lot from was Gods In Color, which was one of the most innovative online curations I’ve ever seen (and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of art galleries). Talking about the significance of the themes behind sculptures in antiquity, a big draw of this particular exhibit was the user interactivity. I’ll use the “Persian Rider” as an example. First, as seen with the screenshot of the Persian Rider, (seen above), I was able to use my toggle to see what it looked like in antiquity as opposed to now, which I couldn’t have done if it was just the statue itself exhibited. I also got to learn about the history behind the discovery of the artifact, while also following an overall story about the themes of the exhibition, which definitely could not have been done in a traditional curation format for sculptures. In addition to the inventive use of click features, which was similar to a visual novel, there were also videos and audio sprinkled through the storytelling to explain exactly what I was looking at. Overall, this taught me two things, one, it's nearly impossible not to be able to showcase art, even in difficult formats, it just takes a lot of ingenuity. Second, I have so many ideas for my project exhibition! I especially liked the click-through function of this particular exhibition, which allowed the cutters to pump it full of interesting history necessary for understanding. I’m thinking of now including a laptop that has a visual-novel click-through presentation that goes into the shortly and themes of my project, combined with audio clips of readings from the stories and explanations. My big thing with my project curation is allowing my story to shine through as clearly as possible, and using tips and tricks from exhibitions curated in challenging environments like this one are proving to be great resources as I tighten my exhibition focus. 

Arts TRYathlon #2: UMD Arts Event

Music for All: Mid-Atlantic Concert Band Festival, 3/29/2025, 

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center  

#concertband #musiceducation #gradeschool #livemusicperformance

As the semester closes, it seemed like none of the Arts Scholars' events worked with my schedule (at least the ones that were upcoming), so I decided to limit myself to UMD Arts events for this TryAthlon. I attended the Mid-Atlantic Concert Band Festival, sponsored by the UMD Arts For All initiative, which aims to further music education and music educators, in which I was able to listen to selections performed by the Lufkin Road Middle School (North Carolina) Concert Band. I felt it was pretty fitting that I was able to attend an event focused on furthering arts education, which Scholars is at the undergraduate level. There were two reasons for choosing this particular event. First, I simply love listening to live music, and having the Clarice has been a great way for me to fuel that hobby as a student at UMD. But second, the reason was the underlying theme of uplifting arts education that the festival had. Through the performance (which was a lot better than I expected from middle schoolers!), I found myself reflecting on the arts education I’ve received over my time as a student, spanning from middle school string orchestra to my Scholars capstone. And as we have talked about in Scholars, my definition of what art constituted reflected much of the arts education I was exposed to and/or took part in. For me, art represents sweeping melodies to intricate stories to specific visual pieces, all of which have often been crafted with the help of incredible mentors, the art educators themselves. As we have pondered the meaning and definitions of art through the program, I feel blessed to have incredible educators in Scholars who have supported my endeavors and challenged my thinking, just like the educators at the festival.