Senior art major Darlene Zhang discusses her video piece, “The Net.”
“My project is a spatial design work that aims to explore the phenomenon of young people's increasing tendency to stay at home in today's society and some thoughts on the future shape of society. I designed each space as a net-like structure because I feel that people are now more inclined to do as much as possible at home, both because of technology and pressure, so I feel as if people are sealed by an invisible net.”
Zhang is one of 12 Franklin & Marshall seniors who presented their art works – a range of interactive media including sculpture, video, drawing, painting and photographic processes – at the Winter Visual Arts Center this spring.
“The Capstone in Studio Art is a year-long interdisciplinary exploration centered on critical and creative thinking within the context of contemporary art and design,” Assistant Professor of Art Sandra Eula Lee says.
For Zhang, whose graduate school offers include California College of the Arts and Glasgow School of Art, her project imagines architectural space to explore and question our “otaku” culture, or the social phenomenon shaped by an overreliance on technology, the professor says.
“Through hands-on making processes, students learn the potential art offers as a vehicle for exploring their concerns and reimagining their conditions,” Lee says. “They can make visible what they imagine.”
This year's Capstone is the first class to create their projects in the studios of the exhibit in the new Winter Visual Arts Center for the full year.
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