Change the Fountain, Instillation, 2019
For this instillation, I presented this bottle of water that was filled from the drinking fountain located right outside of my classroom in the Gunther Trades building on the campus of Utah Valley University. The water from this fountain tastes bad enough that I found myself going to other places on campus to get water. This trip for water is a running joke in my classes, as I discovered that most of my students also travel to other locations on campus to get water.
A student came to me and gave me this bottle of water. I hope you are as disturbed as I am by the sediment at the bottom. Whether this water is “safe to drink” by any federal or state standards is not as important as what this represents, namely the larger issue of how little the university prioritizes the facilities for the visual arts.
For both students and faculty, the fountain where this water came from should be our best option for clean water throughout the day. The fountain needs to be replaced and updated to include an environmentally friendly water bottle filling station.
UPDATE: Three weeks after presenting this artwork the fountain was replaced. I was lecturing and from outside heard “…water filter” - I just walked out of the class and took this picture. Later a student took this photo showing the replacement fountain. I have had several students and faculty come up and thanked me. Art can cause change.
Photo courtesy Kevin Wellman.
Close to Me (To Angelique), Instillation, 2018
This is the second time I have used the faculty show to draw awareness to censorship that occurs here at UVU. This second and most current installation is, sadly, much more personal than the first as it involves a student of mine.
This most recent censorship involved the cover for the university publication, Touchstones, which is a periodical dedicated to literature and visual art. The periodical is a great venue for exhibiting the talent we have here at the University. For its current issue, the editorial staff selected my student’s artwork for the cover of the publication.[1] This powerful image garnered awards last year at the Woodbury Student Show and is a very good representation of what our students are capable of.
Shortly before the official publication of the periodical, my student was informed that her work was no longer going to be used for the cover. After speaking with me about it, I looked into the reasons behind the changes to the cover and was surprised by what I discovered.
I learned that several editors threatened to leave over the use of my students image on the cover. They were upset by what they felt were the image’s illusion to lesbian, sexual desire.[2] It was also assumed that the use of photography as a medium was deemed offensive as well.
These words printed on this board and presented in the gallery are a quotation from the correspondence between my student and the editorial team. Quote: “the potential ramifications to the future efforts of staff prevented us from pushing the envelope.” My purpose for including this in the faculty show was for those present who included faculty, staff, as well as the universities president to take the situation personally. This instance of censorship says a great deal about UVU and its complicated relationship with the predominant ideologies of the community it is within. We are UVU not BYU – censorship of something as benign as this cover is more in line with a religiously run institution, not a state-funded, liberal arts University.
Censorship is a bleak indication of the future and is not indicative of what this University can and should become. UVU has the potential to be an institution of higher-education where its students are inclusive, broad-minded, free-thinkers; and this art installation calls upon students and faculty to be proactive in fostering these ideals. We must be leery of and sensitive to censorship, as censorship hinders growth and true knowledge.
I appreciate the student who came to me and shed light on this instance. This piece doesn’t rectify or excuse, but it does raise a voice. I only hope that this, in some way, makes it so others are not found in a similarly unacceptable situation in the future.
[1]Touchstones, Vol 21, Spring 2018, Photograph by Angelique Strachan entitled Arch can be found on page 35. [2]Based on conversations with students and faculty at the university.
Photograph in proposed design layout. Photograph by Angelique Strachan.
You are not anonymous (Privacy should be default), Instillation, 2017
Dating has turned into something we do on our phones. I was on a dating app that gives your location. I took this photograph as I left my seat on a train. The man seated in the photograph is looking at me. He didn’t say anything to me, but did approached me on a dating app. He sat diagonal from me and, during the course of the train ride, preceded to explicitly expose and stroke himself to me from under the desk he was seated behind. I got uncomfortable and had a friend call me which is when I took this image as I was getting up. I then presented it in the gallery space.
I thought that I was safe using such sites or apps, by default many of these apps relay your location to everyone around you. I believe this was how this man tracked me down. I want app developers to be more accountable for their apps default settings which I feel should be there to protect users from situations such as the one shown before you.
If you are on these apps please consider revisiting your privacy settings and be more aware of your presence and protect yourself. You don’t have any control over how people use this information.
In This Very Place, Instillation, Utah, 2015
As an artist who is concerned with queer and gender issues, I feel inclusion is vital to the visual arts. When censorship occurs, valuable ideas and concepts are lost. In this former installation piece, entitled In This Very Place, I was drawing awareness to exclusion and censorship of artwork – such acts of exclusion happened at that exact gallery.
This was presented one year after a collection of artistic work was excluded from its intended exhibit. These pieces were part of an exhibit entitled InCitetful Clay, which were presented to the Woodbury Art Museum. The exhibit was divided into several sections, one of which was a section entitled “Gender Issues[1].” Upon visiting the exhibition, I was startled by how small this particular section of the show was – the entire section consisted of only one piece. After an initial inquiry into the exhibition, I discovered the entire “Gender Issues” section had been heavily censored. Virtually all the pieces intended for this section were removed. I have since spoken with many curators, including one of the exhibition’s original curators, and have been provided with a publicly available checklist of the exhibition and all of its original content.
The list was then placed in the exhibition so that viewers could be informed of the exclusion that took place and still occurs throughout the visual arts. Censorship is a real issue and has a history not only in Utah County[2], but throughout art’s existence. The reasons for censorship are complicated. Although I am not interested in showing why this particular censorship occurred, I would like to note that within this exhibition’s contract, it notes that host galleries and museums may alter the show according to the needs of the communities in which they are shown. The goal was for viewers to recognize that for every piece they see, there are many others exclude for various reasons.
The work asks you to consider what we can do to avoid excluding work in the future. I believe Utah County can be a place where everyone can not only express themselves, but also receive recognition for their unique contributions.
[1]The list is divided thematically into the sections of the exhibit. The section “Gender Issues” is located on page four and includes the names of the artists and the titles of the work. All of these works were excluded.
[2] The piece specifically addressed a conservative, Mormon culture which is predominant in Utah County. This is further complicated by the fact that the museum censored the exhibition in order to cater the local subculture, despite the museum being part of a state funded university.
Excerpt form the checklist for the show listing the pieces in Gender Issues, all of which were censored.