The Cheshire Academy campus celebrated the arts from March 2-4, with events including living sculptures, graffiti art, and student-led short films.

In CA’s Humanities and Library building, a stage in front of the forum was installed for students to perform 45-second sculptures. Students struck poses alone or with friends for nearly one minute and had a variety of props to use. The presentation was inspired by contemporary Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, famous for creating spaces where passersby can pose as sculptures.

On the forum’s projector were looped short films created by Luc Yokoi ’20.

Also in the Humanities building were two large sheets of paper on which students could draw graffiti, inspired by Banksy, the anonymous England-based street artist. Students listed their names, wrote motivational messages, and drew a variety of images.

While a third graffiti site was also located in the Gideon Welles Dining Hall, the main draw was a table in the center of the room upon which eight handcrafted dinner plates with messages were displayed. Inspiration for the work was based on “The Dinner Party,” a seminal feminist installation art work created in the 1980s by Judy Chicago. Each dinner plate in Chicago’s work represented a famous and significant mythological or historical woman.

Students were asked to design their plates based on the question, “What is it like to eat with people you do not know?” The messages next to the plates were also written by the students, explaining their work.

One plate, which was comprised of a variety of colors, represents a person trying to blend in with strangers at a dinner table, according to the artist. “I used lots of colors mixing together, whether or not they go well together. Each color represents a personality, and everyone has their own color.”

On another plate was a heart, two ears, and chains. The message read, “You should listen with your ears and feel with your heart while you are eating with strangers. Don’t let their voices constrain your emotion or thoughts. When I am eating with people I do not know, I am often nervous, so I concentrate on the feeling around the table and the things they are saying.”