Themester

From Indiana University's website: "The College's Themester program is a focused and multi-faceted inquiry into a variety of topics that change each fall semester. It fosters the exchange of ideas and connects the issues our faculty teach in the classroom to our students' lives through courses, lectures, exhibits, films, and more."

2019

For this year's Themester, the theme was Remembering/Forgetting. I met with a number of researchers and professors from diverse departments of IU to figure out how to represent the abstract yet personal process of remembering and forgetting. For these posters, I drew inspiration from the geometry of the brain itself, as well as the cloudy, nebulous asbtraction that we associate with memory and the lack thereof. The method by which these images were produced is called reaction-diffusion and uses a mathematical model that emulates the biological process that creates brain-like patterns in nature. With some effort, one will discover the words "Remembering" and "Forgetting" obscured within the geometry, one inseparable from the other. Much in the way we must often strain to remember, or forget, the viewer is encouraged to spend time with this poster seeking the hidden message. Like memories also, the message is fragmented and unclear, lost in the complex, interwoven maze of the mind.

2018

For this year's Themester, the theme was Animal/Human. I was tasked with creating a poster which spoke to the profound connection between humans and animals, so I looked for inspiration in ancient mythology. Animals have played an instrumental role in the development on humanity throughout history. All around the world, you will find stories of beasts both benevolent and malicious. These creatures often serve as allegories for natural phenomena or human experiences. Sometimes, however, they are simply our response to the unknown and misunderstood. In my research, I discovered the myth behind the myth of the Greek cyclops: traveling Greeks may have discovered the skulls of pygmy elephants in caves along the mediterranean coastline and confused their nasal cavity for an eye socket. The final poster design is an allusion to this mythos. In lieu of an elephant skull, I photographed the cranium of a walrus and the mandible of a silverback gorilla and digitally constructed a hybridized skull evocative of the mythical cyclops. This unsettling imagery encourages the viewer to imagine, much as the Greeks once did, what such a beast may have looked like in life.