Print“It’s expired,” mused one woman, staring at a yogurt cap attached to the wall. Normally such an object would be tossed away (hopefully into the recycling can) without a second thought, but as part of the Gabriel Orozco exhibit at MoMA, it drew fascinated crowds.
To reach the yogurt caps, visitors walked through an elevator car, which, positioned between a museum store and the exhibition space, was stripped of its function. According to the exhibit description, Orozco salvaged the piece, intrigued after realizing that a building’s elevators outlast its demolition. Instead of lying unnoticed in a junkyard, the metal compartment puzzled and delighted viewers who saw an ordinary object in a new light.
Orozco’s objective is to have his viewers reconsider ordinary objects—and MoMA appreciated his work enough to give him a retrospective. So could your discarded Starbucks espresso cans be art? Kathy Zhang, a first-year in CC, doesn’t know the right answer, but that doesn’t stop her from using them as room décor. A vertically-sliced aluminum can hangs from her busy corkboard. Her unique decoration cost her $2.25, not including the benefit of the drink itself.
In light of two topics increasingly weighing on our global conscience—the recession and the environment—a new method of college room decoration has emerged. Sustainable scavenging: taking things that you like and applying them to the blank canvas of dorm rooms.
Zhang’s room is minimalist, and resembles neither your typical cluttered John Jay single nor a Pottery Barn catalogue. John Jay room 825 has evolved since September 2009, when it was indifferently furnished by Columbia Housing and Dining.
“I was watching an episode of Law and Order that was exploring whether solitary confinement was torture, and the setup of the cell looked exactly like my room. So after I came back from break I was compelled to move my furniture around to create more floor space,” Kathy said.
“We’ve been desensitized,” she insists. “This amount of space is normal,” emphasizing the word “normal” in response to her hall’s reaction to the newfound spaciousness.
While her hallmates marveled at the redecoration, Diana Rivera a first-year in CC, notices something amiss. “Dude, where’s your desk?” she asks. Indeed, the extra square footage came with a sacrifice: Zhang’s desk, which is now underneath her lofted bed. “I didn’t lose any storage space,” said Zhang, who now finds other workspaces in her room, such as her bed and the metal shelves which double as a café-style ledge complemented by the high chair, which she found with her friend in Midtown. “We were pretty sure they were trash so we just took them on the subway and sat on them.”
College students do not need to break the bank or rely on mass-produced posters to decorate their rooms. On the far wall of Kathy’s room she’s arranged red strips of tape, so that, from a specific angle, the tape art creates the illusion of a cube. “I got the tape for two dollars from Chinatown,” Zhang says.
Decoration can be kind to the student budget through sustainable scavenging. The butterfly on the corner of Kathy’s closet door is a product of this method. “I found this poster in midtown,” Kathy says. “I cut the butterfly out and I taped it on in such a way that every time I open the door a part of its wing would tear off. I don’t know whether that makes me sadistic or not… Perhaps it’s mobile art? I’m not sure.”
Emilio Santiago, a first-year in CC, has found art even closer than midtown—at the 116th street subway stop. His penchant for public transit signs led to an original work of art in his room. Before October 9th, Emilio’s MTA sign that the 1 train would be running express was purely functional—a notice to subway riders. After its expiration, that sign became art.
While these students may not have spent much, art certainly exists in their rooms. Aida Conroy, also a first-year in CC, took one of each color MoMA pamphlet and tacked them to her corkboard. She also has her books on their sides—stacked two-and-a-half feet wide and two feet tall—in a sculpture of sorts. Her hats hang on one wall and her scarves are pinned to another. She says, “Everyday objects become more useful. Like my glass Perrier bottles,” which she has lined up on the shelf. “Sometimes I put flowers in them.”
While you can take a leaf from Emilio’s book and pick up Teachers College welcome day signs to tack on the ceiling next to photo collages and glow-in-the-dark stars, you might also take an approach that uses less questionable art.
Art galleries not only call up images of wine and cheese, but tend to be far beyond the average student’s budget. Prices frequently start in the hundreds and reach much higher. However, college students shouldn’t rule them out as sources of inspiration. The annual Outsider Art Fair features work by artists lacking formal training. While the attendees were mostly in their thirties and over, the occasional student can be found. Arti Lal, a senior at the New School, perused the exhibits and purchased several inexpensive postcards of work that she found intriguing.
Dorm-room décor does not have to be limited to cheap reproductions and tacky posters. Aida’s advice to students is, “Don’t throw anything away unless it starts to smell.” The three sustainable student “curators” of their rooms, Kathy, Aida, and Emilio, made snap judgments on items, and their treatment of the objects produced art in both an eco-friendly and budget-friendly manner.