Closing Gaps - PANAMUN Art Exhibition
The ISP community has enriched the experience of PANAMUN since its inception. Every year we expand our community involvement by using the creativity of the students and teachers to target areas that will make every PANAMUN unique and stand out from prior years.
One of the many ways that this is accomplished is by the cooperation of the art teachers, specifically Ms. Faulkner and Ms. Kukic, who took initiative in assigning ISP students tasks that would incorporate the theme of the conference into their art curricula. This link between the issues and the artwork design has allowed the theme “Closing Gaps” to be expressed not only through the debate but artistically, such as through paintings and drawings.
Art students designed visual art pieces that exhibit their views on the gaps that exist around the globe in order to captivate the audience's attention on the importance of these issues. The main issues portrayed in the art works include the gaps between social classes and living standards, that can be illustrated by urban and rural areas, and the gap between war and peace. It took these students roughly a month to finish these pieces of work.
All the pieces of artwork are displayed in the lobby of the Performing Arts Center (PAC), organized by class and into the categories: IB Art, Painting, and Drawing and Botanical Drawing. Each piece shows a distinct perspective, which present diverse gaps around the world.
One piece in particular in the IB art section focused on the racial gap. The painting displays several racial groups in one portrait, highlighting the idea of equality and indifference. In this painting, the artist Lily Chen attempts to promote the idea that everyone is equal, as small sections of each distinct race are prominent in one portrait of an upper body. Her choices show that no individual is superior to another, and everyone deserves to be viewed and treated in the same manner.
Similarly, another student, Isabel Bedoya, depicted the gap of social inequality, in which hierarchy, wealth, poverty, and living standards, are components that are portrayed in the piece. Bedoya illustrated a painting of a cliff with people at different heights of the structure, to demonstrate the levels of society that are present around the world.
Bedoya stated in the reflection of her artwork, “The edge of a cliff that has been cut, split, and eroded in a way that only few have managed to remain on top. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a world where many of the select people with the advantage choose to guard themselves against those who struggle to find better life higher up in the cliff, with their noses pointed upwards in feigned ignorance of what is happening down below.”
Bedoya included the painting of one ladder on the side of the rocks, to show that there are certain people that make it to the top. There should be more ladders that lead people to the top, yet this gap is currently present. The painting should inspire people to want to close this gap, in the sense that the painting causes rage and anguish in the audience towards this disparity in social class. This demonstrates the lack of humanity there is left in people which restrict the willingness to put closure into this issue and continue with selfishness and ignorance.
Two pieces in the Botanical Drawing area stood out to us in the way it promoted nature over technology, which causes a social gap of isolation between individuals. These pieces successfully brought across the naturistic values that should be reflected upon, instead of focusing on the ideas presented on a computer screen. It also allowed the students of different skill levels to feel successful and like they are making an impact on the issues faced by humanity today.
The pieces mentioned above are only a few of the many more displayed in the exhibit. Each piece has its unique message on divergent gaps all around the world. Each gap presented in the pieces of art causes an emotional reaction in the audience that inspires us to want to make a change to improve the vast amount of gaps present in the world.
