On Oct. 28, Kresge Hall transformed seemingly overnight: Large hand sculptures popped up at every turn. The next day, and ever since, no student could escape the 33 hands throughout and surrounding the building.
“It’s a cool interruption to the typical Kresge landscape,” said Weinberg senior Olivia McAllister-Nevins who was reading in a corner of Kresge with an outstretched hand sculpture behind her.
The artists behind the installations are from art theory and practice Prof. Nick Raffel’s Introduction to Sculpture class. Over six weeks, students maneuvered chicken wire, burlap and plaster into hand sculptures that are 5 feet wide and 2 feet long.
The assignment came to Raffel while watching speeches by politicians. Feeling skeptical, he tried to glean something more authentic through their body language, but he said that became questionable, too.
For the project, students began with choosing a hand gesture from a monologue, whether it be from a politician, actor or influencer. The hand had to convey a different meaning from what its owner was saying.
From there, the students painted three gestures on photos of locations in Kresge, then selected one to build into an oversized sculpture.
Raffel said he wanted students to think about what the gestures they designed signal and what it means within its new context, all while letting previous understandings and steps “inform in the periphery.”
Communication and Bienen sophomore Sasha Durta chose a moment from stand-up comedian Josh Johnson, where he described Crocs as a “Swiss-cheese shoe” while making a clawing gesture with his hands.
“I thought that that was such a funny, ridiculous statement compared to the intensity of the gesture,” Durta said.
Durta’s sculpture is tucked away in the corner on the fifth-floor stairwell of Kresge. The hand is outstretched onto a blue ladder in a dimly lit area, leading up toward a trap door and faces away from a large window.
“It’s trying to escape the light. It’s trying to escape the attention, the publicity,” Durta said.
In the process, Durta focused on getting the sculpture to be anatomically precise, particularly by using half-dried plaster to mold tendons onto the back of the hand. She said the process began with bending sheets of chicken wire to form a hand armature. Afterward, she dipped burlap into plaster and wrapped it around the wire frame.
Raffel said an important part of the assignment was letting go of perfection to work with the specific nature of the materials provided. The malleability of chicken wire enabled gravity to distort the original shape. Durta added that the fabric can easily stick to itself and wrinkle, making it hard to sculpt a smooth surface.
“Everyone ended up with totally different stuff,” Durta said. “I really enjoyed walking around on my own after class and seeing each one’s natural environment.”
Another hand found around Kresge was made by Communication senior Hannah Callentine. Positioned in a high-traffic area near the Kresge entrance, Callentine’s installation is of a “broken” hand on the ground with upturned joints and broken fingers, “severed off” with red yarn. By creating something “artistically uncomfortable,” she said she wanted to convey the importance of how people react to each other’s pain.
“Maybe (people will) take a closer look, but at the end of the day, (they’ve) got to go to class,” Callentine said. “Just in the same way when we look at someone’s suffering, are you a little concerned? What happens after that jolt reaction? Do you actually investigate it to learn more about it? Or do you just go on with your day?”
In contrast, Communication sophomore Zoe Qiu’s installation is located in a quieter area, the Kresge courtyard. To Qiu, the courtyard is a magical place where she is able to find quiet and calmness with nature.
Her sculpture is placed among growing trees and white flowers. The intentional placement of Qiu’s sculpture in the soil allowed for early-growth to continue sprouting around it, as well as for autumn leaves to fall onto its palm — which she sees as “a cycle of life and death.”
In what Qiu called the “Kresge hand society,” her hand has its own personality — an ENTP on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which means it’s a compassionate hand that likes to build deep, authentic relationships. Qiu said that as she worked on her hand more and more, she began to view her hand as her female friend.
“I want my sculpture to be like a friend more than a sculpture itself,” Qiu said. “You can sit beside her, pat on her. She’s there. She’s listening. She might not be a wise person responding with a lot of suggestions and solutions, but she wants you to sit beside her and feel yourself.”
Wrapped by two metal cords, Weinberg sophomore Lena Rock’s installation hangs from the main entrance of the building. Rock said the hand is a reactionary piece that symbolizes themes people may be uncomfortable with confronting, like racism and sexism. Rock spoke of dealing with chosen ignorance in her freshman year, such as when a dormmate would rub it off when she told them about a pointedly racist comment she received.
Rock said putting the hand above the building forces people to walk under it.
“My call to action to people is to face the uncomfortable information, even if it makes you uncomfortable, and deal with that accordingly,” Rock said. “Don’t just sit and stay with it, you’re supposed to work through it, you’re supposed to burn some bridges, you’re supposed to make some boundaries.”
As the class project evolved, the students’ relationships with their hands evolved along too. Many felt as if they were buddies with their completed sculptures, some students even saw the hands as their child.
“I feel like we’re in it together,” Durta said. “We’re like partners in crime — I’m delighted by any potential mischief it can cause.”
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