Cheryl Pope Talks Contemporary Art to Kenyon College Students

SAIC faculty in the Fashion Design program, Cheryl Pope (BFA 2003, MDes 2010) received a Mellon Fellowship from Gund Gallery at Kenyon College in order to host her new project Community is Built on Empathy.

In collaboration with students at Kenyon College, Pope gathered a number of statements from students, which were then made into banners and hung along the walls of the school’s athletic center. The statements were then analyzed by a group of statistics students, who exhibited their findings alongside the banners surrounding the intramural basketball court.

Later, a performance titled The Neutral Corner involved twelve rounds of improv dance, poetry, and discussion in a boxing arena, where participants would “face-off” with one another.

“The intention of this project was to use contemporary art as a vehicle for current and relevant conversations across multiple disciplines, sharing voices and outcomes with the students at large,” says Pope.