This picture of festival lawn was taken an event entitled Send Silence Packing. It was a powerful demonstration that used backpacks to represent the number of college students that die each year as a result of suicide.
When I think of festival lawn in many ways I think of a blank canvas. It is utilized by students as a contact zone. Here students spend time hanging out, eating food from festival and engaging in sports and other recreational activities. The space is constructed to take advantage of the panoramic views and the brilliant sunsets that can be seen from festival lawn. This space can be contrasted to other open communal spaces such as the quad. The quad is constructed around the university where festival lawn is constructed around the view of the mountains. That is evident because most of the buildings on east campus face towards the mountains, where the buildings on the quad face each other. The image of sunsets at festival is an important memory about JMU and its surrounding natural beauty.
Here, the space is being used for a form of expression different from the everyday use of festival lawn. The amount of open unobstructed, flat, space causes festival lawn to be extremely versatile in its uses. This degree of open space allow for large scale gatherings and organized demonstrations and programs. Here it is being utilized as a way to spread awareness to students through symbols of backpacks.
Justin Halatyn's Comment for Dr. H
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a very interesting image. As you say, there are many activities that take place on the festival lawn, and I have seen a wide variety of activities when I'm on that side of campus. While I definitely agree with you that this form of expression is very different from the everyday use of the festival lawn, one must wonder how this compares with the original intent of the designers. Did the designers intend for specific uses, or did they envision things like this would happen? What I feel this demonstrates is that intentions for the use of particular spaces is so flexible that it can come to represent anything. Whether it be for athletics events, hanging out with friends, studying outside, or even bringing certain issues to the attention of the university, this space can demonstrate all of these things. What I personally believe is that as time progresses, any sort of space can be changed or altered. As some people talk of a Living Constitution (or an ever-changing and evolving Constitution), one can make the argument that almost all space is living in the same way.
This picture really shows a lot about our community as well as the progression of how something is used throughout time. The lines of packs all alligned perfectly with each other to me showed the common group with whom we interact every day. Our entire college is together on almost everything and this picture shows how we come together to let our voices be heard. Also it is interesting think about the original intent of this area, as mentioned above. The festival lawn is an area that funnels people in so that they feel comfortable. Throughout its existence it has definenetly been so many different things. The coorelation is that the public space is best used for the certain time in which it is being used. Depending on what is relevant to who is in the area that lawn can be used for several different things.
ReplyDelete--Mason Green #2 for Dr. H