Thomas Attebery
Staff Writer
Any student walking around the Fine Arts building for the past couple of months may have stopped to take notice of the strange, beautiful and interesting art pieces populating stairs, doorways, hallways and more.
Walking through the east-side door, students are briefly surrounded by colored orbs, suspended by strings but appearing to nearly float.
In a hallway on the third floor, students find themselves ducking under a lattice work of threads, splayed out in a radial design.
It has certainly changed the once ordinary experience of simply walking to class into a much more visually and intellectually stimulating one.
Laura Ahola-Young, an ISU art professor, has been teaching a group of twelve graduate and undergraduate students in an experimental course designed to broaden their artistic horizons beyond two-dimensional art and help them create art installations.
One of her students is Tirazheh Eslami, originally a graduate student from Iran. She created the aforementioned hanging colored balls piece.
“It’s about how so many different people each day walk through those doors. We are all different and we all influence each other as well,” Eslami said.
“Maybe someone is white, but they meet someone who is black, and now they have changed and influenced each other in small ways they don’t even realize.”
The installations class has also been a way for students to interact and exchange artistic ideas.
Much of Eslami’s work focuses on bringing a better understanding of her own culture and religious background to people living in the United States.
Her paintings often feature a Persian word in Arabic writing that has been worked into the painting.
“Sometimes people will ask me ‘Why are you not covering your face? Why aren’t you wearing a Hijab?’ and I say, ‘I’m from Iran, we don’t cover our faces there.’ A few years ago someone asked my husband if we rode camels in my country. It’s so strange. Iran is not a poor country. we have cars,” Eslami said. “One day I had my classmates and my professor eat a traditional Persian breakfast and sit on the floor. I just want to see how they react to having something they haven’t had before. It was a really nice experience.”
Another artist, McKinzie Neary, created two installations, one of which featured teddy bears that had been torn up to represent child abuse.
“Before I thought of myself as just someone who draws, but now I definitely know that I’m an installation artist,” Neary said.
“Before this class I didn’t know how to work with content, and now my work is very content-driven. I really hope that the art department will continue to offer an art installations class. I would love to see more people in the future find out they can be installation artists.”
