Dr. Strange is a black and white portrait series with colorful silk screen background layers. This tryptic depicts the dissonance between the modernized and industrial part of Central Square and its eccentric community.

The portraits overlayed with contrasting color prints portray the disconnection between the community's personal experience and the changing environment around them.

 Inherently, this will serve as a microcosm for American societal structures as so many cultural relics like Central Square are being changed by the growing future.

I took inspiration from the mediums used during the Pop Art movement. Andy Warhol's silk screening process was something I wanted to learn and experience while also stemming my project from photography. The imperfections of the process, and the visual imperfections in the print replicate the challenges of a shifting community.

Kenzie: Eat Ugly Cambridge is a campaign modeled on the body positivity. This campaign aims to reduce food waste by raising awareness that food thrown away for aesthetic reasons is still tasty and nutritious. In fact, 50% off produce is thrown away before it reaches stores as a result of aesthetic reasons. The Eat Ugly campaign challenges the idea of normative standards of beauty for food and humans. This campaign challenges societal norms in the hope of changing the societal pattern of picking fruits based on aesthetics. Eat Uglys main goal is to encourage people to recognize that "ugly" produce still tastes good. The Eat Ugly Campaign targets consumers with stickers and posters because once companies know that people will buy "ugly" produce, companies will buy it from farmers and stop wasting this fruit. Eat Ugly hopes to strive to inspire self-reflection in the food industry and in consumers, in the hope of changing people's habits and ideas, so that they learn to value taste and nutrition above appearance in food. With success, this campaign will hopefully change societal norms in the effort to reduce waste. 

Dina: The Eat Ugly Cambridge campaign tackles the egregious amount of food waste produced by the American food industry and its consumers. Almost fifty percent of U.S. produce, including what is discarded at various stages of production as well as by sellers and buyers, bypasses stomachs for the landfill. Eat Ugly's promotional materials, parodying the "body positivity” movement that promotes acceptance of humans of all shapes and sizes, will help consumers assess their wasteful habits by questioning societal standards of the appearance of fruits and vegetables. Placing the stickers emblazoned with our slogan, “Eat Ugly,” on the fruit itself is a creative method of reaching consumers. These stickers will direct people to the stylistically similar posters, which display important information about food waste alongside cartoon fruit models. By causing small changes in the behaviors of local shoppers, the Eat Ugly movement rescues produce that would otherwise have been destined for landfills. With enough momentum, the Eat Ugly movement will lessen the pollution generated by excess food production, keep uneaten produce out of landfills, and conserve American land, water, and labor.

Juxtaposed side by side, Framed Woman and Cerberus Boy show the shifting ideology of gender expression over time while challenging the notion of gender as two concrete identities that people must conform to. 

Framed Woman is based on a portrait photograph from the 1800s depicting a woman of royalty during that time period. The figure in the photograph is outlined in order to create a frame that represents the gender expectations that people are demanded to fit into. When looking back through history, all people have to look at are photographs and paintings, so I believe that it is important to understand how gender roles were projected through these mediums and how they shape the way society views gender today. 

Continuing this subject of gender as a social construct in society, Cerberus Boy is based on a portrait photograph that I took and outlined the contour of. Framed Woman maintains neutral colors due to photography only being in black and white at the time, as well as representing how black and white the construct of gender was in society. 

Contrarily, Cerberus Boy includes tons of color in the piece, showing the freedom of gender expression today. In addition to the colorfulness of the piece, it contains multiple faces, demonstrating the complexity of gender expression. 

Aoife Brief: 

Stacked Up: a counter-monument seeking to critique the criminal justice system that proves itself a failure to communities of color and their futures in America.The installation visualizes the entry point into the criminal justice system and highlights how this system disproportionately targets and impacts people of color. 

Since the abolishment of slavery, white and powerful Americans have been finding ways to once again enslave and take advantage of people of color. Whether it be the 13th Amendment prison-slavery loophole, the "War on Drugs" that imprisoned black men at a 100:1 ratio to white men, or  killing unarmed hooded black children in the name of the law, the criminal justice system continues to marginalize and fail people of color. 

Stacked Up tells the story of people who have been targeted by systematic and institutionalized racism by showing a mix of statistics, biographies, and symbols. Users can reach their hands into the dark bed of the all white vehicle through the back window, take a scroll and read a biography about the young  men and women of color who have been wronged by or stuck in the  criminal justice system. The goal is to educate the general public about people who are dehumanized and silenced, and to give voice to their lived experiences. It  highlights how systematic racism is a pervasive issue that needs to be addressed and ended.

Lucas Brief:
Stacked Up: A counter-monument seeking to critique the criminal justice system that has disproportionately impact people of color in America. The installation, a recreation of a police car, invites viewers to consider the difficulty of entering the justice system for the first time. This installation informs viewers of the harmful justice system that targets people of color and will make them question how institutional racism within the system is stacked against them.  

 In the United States, the criminal justice system is deeply flawed. The moment a person is first arrested, they are officially system-involved. Being system-involved can impact an individual for the rest of their life, especially if they are a person of color. Stacked Up explores this trajectory through the lens of a police car, which symbolizes the moment of entry into the justice system and the way that institutional racism is enforced through the law. The police car allows viewers to learn about people who have been trapped in the criminal justice system for years. Viewers interact with different biographies by reaching through an open window of the car and unveiling a true story they read.