Photo by Mahika Kukday | The Crow’s Nest
By Mahika Kukday
Harbor Hall is a bubble of creativity.
Tucked away on one end of Poynter Park, the graphic arts building at the University of South Florida often goes unnoticed by those not enrolled in the program.
But for the students who spend nine-hour days in its studios, bringing visions to life on paper, canvas, wood and more, it’s home.
Every spring semester, the well-kept secret of Harbor Hall’s wonders is revealed when senior students hold their yearly showcase.
Incoming students to the graphic arts program are designated as “pre-graphic arts” majors and are only officially admitted to the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Arts degree track if they pass their sophomore showcase evaluation.
This year’s instalment of the annual senior exhibition took place on April 18 from 5 to 10 p.m. and featured 26 graduating students’ work. Students were given an optional prompt to inspire their work — “What would you change?”
Bella Fuentes interpreted the question as an opportunity to highlight what she would change about society today. In what her classmates lovingly referred to as the “South Park approach,” her display was a criticism on patriarchy.
Photo by Mahika Kukday | The Crow’s Nest
“I’m taking something and going so deep into it to the point that it kind of turns back around and then you see the irony in it,” she explained. “So, I’ve been parodying the ‘trad wives’ rhetoric and replacing any mention of man or the husband with Mothman.”
“Mothman” was Fuentes’ fictional character that anchored the cult-like idea of her display. She designed, printed and bound a book that details how one would devote their life to the Mothman.
Her mixed media piece was designed to give the viewer an immersive experience in Mothman’s cult; one could read about the philosophy in the hand-made book, take in the candles and eerie symbolism at the altar, and take a sticker to go.
Fuentes hoped that her work provoked a moment of thought for its observers.
Lillia Rush also chose to use the prompt, but when they were “immediately overwhelmed with how many things [they] would want to change,” they decided to give their project an uplifting message instead.
“My project is about finding safety despite it all,” Rush said. “It opens a space for people to think about where they feel safe and who they feel safe around, while also confronting things that they’re afraid of or hurt by.”
Photo by Mahika Kukday | The Crow’s Nest
They said that current events in the U.S. and across the world inspired them to create a moment of security and peace for people.
Rush’s blanket fort drew on feelings of togetherness and community that they associate with sewing and embroidery. After writing down something that observers are afraid of or have been hurt by, they could climb inside the fort for a brief moment of respite from the world.
“As a freshman, you see the senior show and you think that it’s something you might get to do,” Rush said, adding that finally seeing their efforts materialized feels rewarding.
After graduating this semester, Rush is considering exploring a career in art directing for museums. In addition to creating art, they said the process of putting the showcase together helped them realize how much they enjoy event coordination and “building something bigger.”
Kari Holm echoed Rush’s sentiments of community in her piece entitled “igualmente” which means “equally” in Spanish.
She filled a shelf that she brought from her home with family heirlooms, handmade prints and collages and other items that brought her back to her Puerto Rican heritage — a deeply personal direction that Holm said her work doesn’t usually take.
Photo by Mahika Kukday | The Crow’s Nest
One part of Holm’s project focused on how she didn’t learn Spanish growing up and how she wanted to hold herself accountable for that.
“At my current age, I’m responsible for my relationship with my culture and I really wanted to lean into that,” she said. “I wanted to show that I am growing into myself more and that my culture is really important to me.”
For Duy Do, explaining his work to his many supporters in attendance at the showcase was a bit more difficult.
Inspired by Albert Einstein’s block universe theory and the theory of relativity, Do created a series of prints that are supposed to mimic what he imagines to be a four-dimensional object when viewed in succession.
“I want the movement of the image to be activated by the observers,” he said, adding that much of Einstein’s work that he studied focusses on how time is relative and based on the observer.
To achieve this, Do used a medium called lenticular printing, where he created dozens of miniscule strips of different images of the campus waterfront and laid them between special plastic to create the illusion of depth when viewed from different angles.
Photo by Mahika Kukday | The Crow’s Nest
This was Do’s first attempt at lenticular printing. The idea came to him as he meditated by the campus waterfront, and this imagery ultimately became the focus of his display.
Do said the scientific direction wasn’t one he’d taken before.
“With this one, I kind of just went with the flow, it just came to me,” he said. “The research process took the most time since I had to look through articles and understand the theories.”
While visitors filtered in and out of the gallery during the five-hour-long showcase, enjoying refreshments and each other’s’ company, students bid goodbye to this chapter of their lives.
Holm said the final showcase was a bittersweet moment as each class spends so much time together over the years.
“There’s not really going to be anything that ever replicates how this program has felt and how it was being together,” she said. “Seeing this is a huge moment for us all, and we’re all just really proud of ourselves and of each other.”
