Students will showcase their visual arts projects in the walkway leading to the Read & Relax Room.

The Fourth of July in Atlanta

Nicholas Ayoub, Art & Art History

The project began as a way to discover the connection people across the coast had to their land, city, and space. We filmed in New York City, Haeldon and Patterson NJ, Orlando and Tampa FL, Atlanta GA, DC and Williamsburg VA. We focused on talking with people who we knew personally and felt had an interesting connection to their space. We interviewed a range of people from Marines to farmers to politicians to refugees and are make a series of audio visual presentations as a way to share their story. The individuals are asked what could best represent their lives pictorially and using artificial intelligence, sustainable construction methods, and film techniques we worked to show how they relate to their space. This is a starting point for the research project, by spring 2024 we plan on creating an immersive experience that allows people to interact with these stories in order to connect an audience to the world around them and get a sense of with the environment of the eastern United States is like from the perspective of those who experience it everyday.

Advisor: Michael Mogayn, Art & Art History

ArtLab

Rachel Nguyen, Biology; Karino Gibson, Biology; Darrison Haftarczyk, Kinesiology

The W&M ArtLab is a group of ten students: Elise Overton, Halle Boroski, Syeda Safdar, Ayoola Oladimeji, Darrison Haftarczyk, Marrisa Sirois, Karino Gibson, Rachel Nguyen, D.J. Parman, and Anu Desai. Over the summer of 2023, we worked on a project for Vanderbilt University’s ArtLab-VI4 (Institute of Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation). This project aimed to bridge the gap between two disciplines: art and science. Our goal was to increase communication between the two areas of study, as well as create advancements in science communication through visual art. Each of us paired with different research labs from universities across the country to create various forms of visual and creative representations of scientific research. As our final collective project, we compiled all of our artwork into a virtual gallery, which can be visited here. We are continuing to expand our project and increase outreach to create a supportive and creative environment for artists, and to foster science communication through visual art at W&M.

Advisor: Tyler Meldrum, Chemistry

Radicalization to Assimilation: The Italian American Story as Represented in American Cinema

Jarel White, Film & Media Studies (major), Italian Studies (minor)

20th century Italian immigrants inhabited a precarious racial position (a sort of in-betweenness or off-white identity) but actively construct their identities to adhere to the White Hegemonic Structure that is the United States, which we will examine through an American film context. Through this assimilation into a general white ethnic identity, as represented through American cinema, the Italian American individual comes to perpetuate the oppressive values of whiteness.

Advisor: Sergio Ferrarese, Italian Studies