 to go. He then told us that we didn’t eat enough and that we needed to stay longer and try more things. He asked us kindly to try more of their deserts and sit and relax longer, and that it would make him happy if we tried more.
What can you say to that? You can say “Ok, let’s go check out more food!” It’s obvious that we have a very different cultural expectation of how long we should take to eat, and we hadn’t met his expectation. It was a fascinating thing to see played out, and frankly, really brought home a lesson in cultural differences to my son.
Needless to say, we grabbed some deserts and they were really neat. My son loved this sour yogurt and rice pudding, which I gobbled down some sweet mango yogurt type of dish. It was really yummy, and was a great way to end a meal of spicy foods. The entire experience was a lot of fun, and I can see us paying this establishment a visit more often.The students claim that "Dissatisfaction, traumatization, and boredom are realities" within their "collective MRC experiences."
Matteo Ricci College is part of Seattle University, a Jesuit institution.
Students are occupying the dean’s office at Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College (MRC), demanding “a non-Eurocentric interdisciplinary curriculum” and other diversity measures.
According to The Seattle Times, the protesters are demanding a revised curriculum that “decentralizes Whiteness [sic],” additional faculty and staff “from diverse backgrounds,” and mandatory “anti-racism” training for all faculty members, in addition to vowing that they will remain in place until Dean Jodi Kelly resigns.
Students at MRC want a curriculum that "decentralizes Whiteness."
The students, who refer to themselves as the “MRC Student Coalition,” also started an online petition to coincide with the sit-in that outlines their demands in great detail, but neglects to specify the root of their grievances.
MRC was established in 1975 through a collaboration between two Jesuit institutions, Seattle University and Seattle Preparatory School (other Catholic high schools have since joined), and combines high school and university courses into a single Humanities program, allowing students to earn both degrees in just six or seven years, as opposed to the traditional eight years, with the option of adding a specialty in either leadership or teaching.
The students behind the petition identify themselves as majors in the Humanities for Teaching and Humanities for Leadership program, but address their objection to the Humanities program in general, claiming it gives short shrift to non-Western ideas.
Moreover, the students want “staff from marginalized backgrounds, especially professors of color and queer professors,” to prepare the new courses in conjunction with the Women and Gender Studies, Sociology, Social Work, Political Science, and Psychology departments at Seattle University.
The petition then goes on to bemoan the fact that “professors lack the skill set needed to address and challenge microaggressions in the classroom,” positing that the deficiency can only be addressed by requiring all faculty members to undergo “anti-racist” training and hiring more professors from diverse backgrounds.
Claiming that the current administration has failed to take their concerns seriously, the students also insist on “an external, student-driven review of the leadership of the college,” as well as the creation of “a safe environment” on campus for them to air their grievances.
A spokesperson for MRC told The Seattle Times that administrators have been meeting with the student activists in recent weeks, and have already agreed to act on many of their demands, offering in a written statement to conduct a comprehensive curricular review, hire a consultant to assess the school’s climate, and institute cultural competency trainings.
The students, however, declare that they are done conversing about their grievances, the process being too emotionally draining, and insist that it is now the responsibility of MRC administrators to educate themselves on the matter.
At press time, the petition had received 436 signatures over the course of about two days, though many of those were from individuals outside the MRC community, according to comments left on the page.By John T. Spike
Published in the International Art Magazine 'Art & Antiques'
Summer Edition p. xx.
Artists can be compared to bees, American philosopher Buckminster Fuller has pointed out. A bee gathers
nectar to make honey; yet what its really doing, one might say, is pollinating flowers. So artists often find that their actions have unexpected consequences.
John Dahlsen is a contemporary Australian artist whose wide-ranging interests lead him in many directionsfrom
abstract painting to digital photography to sculptures in public
squares. In his leisure time, Dahlsen enjoys strolling along the
splendid sandy beaches near his home in Byron Bay. Unfortunately,
even the virgin coasts of Australia are besmirched by picnic litter and soda cans washed up by the tide and on occasion, Dahlsen will
pick these items up, as many of us would.
One day about a decade ago it struck him just how much brightly
colored junk was lying about in plain sight. The shore and dunes were sparkling with pieces of red, blue, black,
white and clear plastic. In a gesture that initially seemed futile,
Dahlsen started filling sacks with refuse and bringing them home
to sort. Most of the bottle tops, childrens combs, bubble
pipes, hair clips and innumerable other broken and sundry bits
of plastic turned out to be dyed in the same few colors. Soon
his rubbish bins w e r e o v e r - flowing with colorful assemblages
of objects that were indistinguishable except
for their shapes. Unified in this way, the beach debris seemed
less ugly.
This made Dahlsen wonder if he could somehow make his pickings
seem almost beautiful. Unlikely as it sounds, the answer turned out to be yes. Even back then, the idea of composing
with found objects was neither radical nor new. Forerunners like Kurt Schwitters in the 1920s and Robert Rauschenberg
in the 60s used ticket stubs and auto parts for much the same reason that the Old Masters painted gold watches
and sputtering candles: as signs of the ephemerality of life and
our worldly possessions.
Dahlsen, by comparison, is an optimist. To begin with, hes
already made a positive statement by clearing off the unsightly stuff that is lethal to fish and fowl. (Australias
wildlife conservancies adore Dahlsens work, which was hardly his intention, but so be it.) He wanted to impart a kind of Minimalist
stability to his jumbles of deep true colors. One early assemblage
of coffee lids, cooler fragments and bottle tops shared the ethereal
white-on-white aura of a Robert Ryman abstraction or a William Bailey still lifeonly much
more energetically. Piling up black combs, disposable razors and
pieces of rope yielded a Louise Nevelson-like sculpture with attitude.
Beachcombers are always on the move, of course, and Blue
Rope (Triptych), a new work, shows that Dahlsen has started
to take the risk of mixing his colors. One would never suspect
there could be anything romantic about a stratified
miscellany of nylon ropes, plastic garbage bags and fish nets,
but it is hard to avoid the impression that its undulations evoke
a deep blue ocean and the tangled ropes are a little like stormtossed
clouds. But it would be absurd to read anything into such a mishmash.
Or would it? Besides, unlike Rauschenberg in pursuit of a decisive
detail, Dahlsen likes to group his finds in categories and ask
himself what it means that our age works in plastic, as opposed
to stone, bronze or iron. Dahlsen, in other words, has become
an artful archaeologist.
John T. Spike is the director of the Florence
International Biennial of Contemporary Art.
"Official artist
of the new millennium" for the environmental organizations
Clean up Australia and Clean up the World.
In 2000 he won the prestigious " Wynne Prize"
for sculpture and landscape painting at the Art Gallery of New
South Wales and has since been a finalist in both 2003 and again
this year in 2004. In 2000, he was appointed "Official artist
of the new millennium" for the environmental organizations Clean
up Australia and Clean up the World. "John CUA & CUW.
Article from: The Courier - Mail May 30, 2007
By Mike O'Connor "When art meets trash"
Witness of beauty in the every day
"The.
Reviewed by John T Spike at the 2003 Florence
Biennial archaelogyle
of Contemporary Art.
Indepth Arts News:
"John Dahlsen: Renewed"
2004-02-04 until 2004-03-02
Gallery 49
New York, NY, USA United States of America.
John Dahlsen is a Premiere Portfolio Artist at absolutearts.com.
View more of his works at:.
Related Links: Indepth Arts Resources for the State of New York
Other Important Exhibitions in New York.
Coca Rotaru Director, Gallery 49, New York City.
The Opening Of The New Victorian College of the Arts Art Gallery
(Speech Exerpts) Wednesday 15 August 2001
The Hon Peter McGauran, MP
Almost a century and a half after the VCA's