The C33 Gallery, located on the first floor of the 33 Ida B. Wells building, shows seven exhibitions of student work throughout the academic year.
Once per semester, the gallery does a call for exhibition proposals, and the deadline for Fall 2023 is Oct. 23. Accepted exhibitions will be displayed during the Spring 2024 semester. The application is open to solo, two- or three- person exhibitions regardless of major.
Once students submit their applications, a committee of staff members reviews and votes on finalists. Mark Porter, senior exhibitions coordinator at the college, said that the committee looks for statements that are clear and that have a lot of details.
“We also keep in mind what other types of processes we’ve exhibited in the past so that we have a nice selection of diverse exhibits. That’s something that’s really important to us,” Porter said.
The college provides things such as printing materials, vinyl posters and social media outreach for the artists. “The artist’s responsibility is to bring the work to the gallery, do all the planning and install the work, and then we help support that process and then promote it.” Porter said.
“TRUE, BLUE, AMERICAN YOU!,” the most recent exhibit, created by junior fine art photography major, Zoey Marciniak, is what they describe as a photographic footnote of postcards home to their parents which expresses their journey of moving back and forth from Iowa to Chicago.
“We have so many resources at the college and the Gallery is one of them and nobody applies because they feel like their work is not going to be good enough or they feel like it’s not a complete enough project…apply, even if you’re not sure, just apply,” Marciniak said.
An exhibition titled “NATURAL” by senior film and television major Jacob Sutton will be showcased next in the gallery. The opening reception will be on Oct. 26 and will run through Nov. 17.
Sutton’s exhibit is inspired by a poem titled “Natural” by surrealist jazz poet, Ted Joans published in 1973. The goal of his project is to connect the words of the poem back to real life issues.
“The focus for me was just an exploration about how do specifically black youth experience, struggle with or reject beauty standards, black objectification and just the relationship with their black body to hopefully be their most natural true, unapologetic selves,” Sutton said.
In his exhibition Sutton will be displaying a 13-minute film, cut into two sections, one side of the gallery will project the interviews and recitation of the poem and the other side will project b-roll footage of the faces and body features of the interviewees. The people featured in the film answer various questions about societal beauty standards. Photo prints will be displayed along the surrounding walls.
“What I want most with this project was to show our struggle but also show we’re not discouraged because of it…we’re being badass creatives and making art and pushing through the bullshit anyway,” Sutton said.
Students can submit exhibitions proposals for the Spring 2024 semester here.
