In the news: CCAD students & the art of protesting

Students at Columbus College of Art & Design are learning the art of protesting as part of a new class project and exhibition.

To kick off the fall 2019 semester, Contemporary Crafts and Fine Arts Chair and Professor Tim Rietenbach tasked around 100 students in the Contemporary Crafts, Fine Arts, and Studio Art with an Emphasis in the History of Art & Visual Culture programs with making protest signs.

The signs will be on view in Sept. 9-Oct. 9, 2019, in the lobby of CCAD’s Canzani Center in an exhibition called Protest, the project, which is free and open to the public.

The project recently garnered attention from the press.

Spectrum News 1 talked to several students who made signs, including Zoey Hayook (Fine Arts, 2023) and Brielle Smith (Fine Arts, 2023), and reported: "One stroke at a time, students at the Columbus College of Art & Design mix, shape, and create powerful messages— messages they're passionate about."

Columbus Alive also talked with Grace Oller (Fine Arts, 2020), who, Alive said, "crafted a sign inspired by a question the National Museum of Women in the Arts has asked each year during Women’s History Month in March since 2016: Can you name five women artists?"

“There are a lot about climate change and environmental health, and a lot on art censorship and feminism, and some about smoking and vaping,” Oller told Alive. "And there were some that were just kind of funny, like one that just had a bunch of pictures of possums and said, ‘More possums, less cellphones.’”

CCAD Associate Professor Julie Abijanac also talked about Protest, the project on WOSU's All Sides Weekend.