(Photo courtesy of PBS.org) Photo showcases protesters in face masks walking down a street holding a Black lives matter flag
Cassandra Milnes
Connector Editor
The UML Art Student Union is hosting a postcard event reflecting the times we currently live in through a non-profit “mail in art order.” President of the Art Student Union, Brooke Gibbas, spoke about the event.
Gibbas has a major part in this event. “As the president, I am pretty much in charge of putting the fire under the pot for the rest of the members and making sure we are really creating this event. I make sure it isn’t too lighthearted and taking the matter seriously,” Gibbas said.
The annual postcard event is “usually a fundraiser for the club, however we cannot do a physical postcard event because of everything going on,” Gibbas said. Due to these changes, the event had to change, making it now more “underground art culture.”
“Because it is going to be non-profit this year, I felt that we should take on a more serious matter,” she said. “Even though the major Black Lives Matter movement has tapered off a little bit, including coverage for that, even though there has been no conclusion. It is the end of the year. The event should reflect this.”
Gibbas requests that everyone sends something in that reflects activism this past year, “I tried to keep it open-ended. ‘Send in a piece. It’s about activism,’ because some people shy away and are more motivated to focus on something else adjacent to the Black Lives Matter movement.”
“It is a very important issue that should be addressed as such a current thing in our country and state’s history. As a public university in Massachusetts and Lowell, which is such a diverse place, I feel that this is such a unique moment we should really showcase. If we do not, we really aren’t doing it justice,” Gibbas said.
“All the pieces will be together as a collection. All these ruminations of people thinking about the movement and words people can’t say at the time and inspirations are all together to showcase that we want to change,” Gibbas said.
Submissions must be either 5×7 or 8×10. All submissions are free and can include as many pieces as one wants to send in. The postcards must be submitted by Sunday, December 20 to ensure that the virtual gallery can go up by the end of the semester.
To submit a postcard, there are two options: virtual or mail-in. To send the postcard virtually, email it to Brooke_Gibbas@student.uml.edu. To mail in the postcard, mail it to 1 Merrimack Plaza, Unit 411, Lowell, MA 01852.
After the gallery is complete, Gibbas said, “We’re planning on donating the collection of pieces to the school library once everything cools down and the buildings open up again, but for now, all the work will be viewable online!” For the first time, the gallery will be entirely free to view.
