2019–2020 Student Stories

What drew you to this particular piece?

First, I liked its size. I also noticed that it matched the color scheme of my section of my room. The pale pink and evergreen lines matched my “Grand Budapest Hotel” poster also hanging on my wall.

How did you choose where to display the piece?

I hung it above my desk. In my bedroom at home, my walls are a mosaic of hung items ranging from postcards to a thrifted tennis racket. The wall above my desk is a continuation of this practice. Displaying it among my own posters made the piece feel truly incorporated into my room.

How does the piece interact with your space?

The piece definitely draws people’s attention, but it also makes sense among the items in the room. Its presence in my dorm is similar to the one it had in the gallery when I first saw: it blends in, but once you spot it, it stands out.

What has your experience been like living with the artwork? 

Living with the artwork has been a source of inspiration for me. I did some research on the artist, Audra Skuodas, and the ideas behind her work are very intriguing. She portrays the concept of vibrational vulnerability: the invisible phenomenal of incremental cause and effect. Living with this art has introduced me to new ideas that I otherwise would not have encountered.

Do you think that its presence has an effect on you personally?

I watched a video where Skuodas compared art to science because they both are pushing boundaries. I have always been interested in the humanities and the arts, and at a place like MIT, I was nervous I would only focus on technical subjects. I have been happily surprised that there are so many opportunities here that highlight the intersection between science and art. Skuodas’s work helped me locate my interest in these crossroads.

What were some things you looked for in a piece while you were making your choices from the collection? 

I’m so used to getting just a few minutes with artwork in a museum. I was surprised to find that I looked for very different characteristics when picking out a piece to spend a whole year with. There were some funny text-based pieces and surrealist works that I loved in the gallery but that felt a little overwhelming for a long-term relationship. I thought that pieces with big, bold colors might create a more comfortable, long-term sense of joy.

What drew you to this particular piece?

I liked the clean lines, how even though it’s really simple there’s something new to discover every time you look at it.

How did you choose where to display the piece?

I live in a small Cambridge apartment, and it’s easy for the rooms to feel cluttered. The geometric minimalism of the piece ensures that it always feels clean and comfortable in that corner of the room, at least.

How does the piece interact with your space?

I live in a small Cambridge apartment, and it’s easy for the rooms to feel cluttered. The geometric minimalism of the piece ensures that it always feels clean and comfortable in that corner of the room, at least.

What has your experience been like living with the artwork? 

It has been a treat. When I got it, I sent photos to some members of my family. It was really special to hear their reactions – everybody connects with it in a different way.

What were some things you looked for in a piece while you were making your choices from the collection?

At this point in time my place was only half furnished, so I was really looking for something to guide future design decisions. There wasn’t a specific checklist, just a vaguely defined emotional assessment: I had to really want it. I strolled through the gallery three times before making a decision. Part of the fun was busily obsessing over all the details.

What drew you to this particular piece?

I’ve always been a softie for nostalgia, a sense of vastness, etc. For me, the strongest idea from the painting is passage of time. The dominant colors are various shades of rust while the building’s foundation is heavily eroded, yet the building itself still stands. What will fade?

What will remain? After looking it up, I found Mnemosyne to be the perfect name. It’s one the painting shares with the Greek goddess of memory, mother to the nine muses.

How does the piece interact with your space?

I think mid-century modern design does a good job of being thematically clean, allowing other elements to stand out. There’s instead a sense of overgrowth as soon as you enter the apartment due to plants overflowing from every corner and every wall. A planted fish tank with a bonsai moss tree takes center stage. I also have a couple of vaguely Greek busts, pieces of art, and bookends. The painting really drives the image of some civilization’s ruins being reclaimed by nature.

What were some things you looked for in a piece while you were making your choices from the collection?

I wanted to find something that would grow with me in my last year at MIT. I knew that I would be spending many hours alone, researching and writing and lying awake fretting over my thesis, and I was looking for a piece that I could have a conversation with as my own work progressed. 

What drew you to this particular piece?

At first glance the piece seems unassuming. A photograph of a framed picture perched on a wooden table against a serene blue background. The layers unfold, though, first with the phrase “Our Honeymoon,” written in a cursive script, opposite a pair of beach sandals. Rather than the anticipated romantic image – a vacationing newlywed couple – the frame bounds the iconic diagram of a slave ship. This commercialized, contemporary mode for displaying domestic bliss embeds, instead, a historic representation of oppression. I’ve found some of these same themes in my research on popular media representations of incarceration, and I appreciate that this piece challenges its viewers to engage with their own culpability.  

How did you choose where to display the piece?

Because the work invites close, intentional viewing, I chose to nest it in my living space. It hangs in my bedroom, and I think that this placement serves to foreground the fraught relationship between domesticity and complicity at the center of the work. In particular, it hangs on my blue bedroom wall above a wooden dresser, mimicking the piece’s own composition.