Much of the focus of art making and art viewing is exploration of what humans perceive as beautiful and right. This is sometimes achieved by looking in the opposite direction at where beauty is lacking and wrong exists. Artworks frequently explore aesthetic elements in an attempt to define or capture beauty, and they often reveal social ills as a plea for justice. ART151 students are required to attend a museum to view art, and then to write a comparison of two artworks that impacted them, one work from an earlier culture (from the 1300s to 1800s) and one from modern to post-modern times. For Symposium Day, their presentation will share images of their chosen art pieces along with their essay theses, thus allowing additional viewers to join their examination of artistic perceptions of loveliness (beauty) and validity (justice), or to be challenged by truths revealed through aesthetic media. The method will be a repeating (looping) slide show saved as video of approximately 30 slides, each showing two artworks and a statement about how those works compare in form or meaning; viewers may watch for as long as they desire because the slides will continuously loop. Total time might be around 8 minutes if each slide shows for 15 seconds.
Restore Creation, Gordon College's sustainability department, has organized a photography competition on the theme of "Beauty in the Everyday." Through this competition, we encourage students to capture moments that reflect beauty, care, and life which may go unnoticed in everyday life. This provides a great opportunity for students to be creative while thinking about how they can capture moments that tell a story of sustainability. We aim to promote an intentional observation of the beauty of creation around us, and share the importance of being aware of the impact that we have on the environment. We want to share that it is only right that we do what we can to make sure that we treat the world that we live in with care. The event on Symposium will be a short (around 10 minutes) unveiling of the winners of the competition in Jenks, where the winning photograph will be displayed.
