Photos by Alice Lam First-year student Joanne
Situ helps paint a banner for The Art Project’s upcoming
festival. This is the second year the festival has been held.
By Michael Rosen-Molina
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Giving students the opportunity to showcase their talents, the
UCLA Art Project hosts its Festival Of Art on campus today and
Tuesday.
The festival, which takes place on Bruin Walk and in Kerckhoff
Grand Salon, features a variety of art forms.
Three tents displaying student art, including paintings,
photographs, sculptures and other visual pieces, will be set up on
Bruin Walk today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and UCLA students Annie
Fink and Rene Frescas will perform experimental music at noon.
“This is a good opportunity for people who have art to
display to be proud of their work,” said second-year English
student Kathy Kennedy. “You don’t need to be an amazing
artist or an art major to participate. If you can’t draw, you
can still submit photographs. There’s something for
everyone.”
The Art Project encouraged staff and faculty to submit their
work also, but the best response came from students. Since anyone
on campus can enter the Festival of Art, contributions came from
students in a variety of disciplines.
“Most of the contributors are not art majors,” said
fourth-year English and international economics student Jennifer
Wang. “We wanted to involve people who normally
wouldn’t have any place to show their work, people who might
not be studying art but still have something artistic to
contribute.”
The UCLA Art Project organized the Festival of Art in
conjunction with Westwind, the undergraduate humanities journal.
The Undergraduate English Association is also involved in the
venture. Wang said that the Undergraduate English Association was
interested in the project since it was already involved in
producing an artistic, literary publication.
“They publish a creative writing journal with a more New
Yorker slant,” Wang said.
The second day of the festival will move indoors to the
Kerckhoff Grand Salon. Tuesday will feature written works rather
than visual arts, with short fiction and poetry readings by
students from 3-6 p.m. and, at 4:30 p.m., there will be a reception
for all Festival of Art participants.
 Photos by ALICE LAM James Duong, a
third-year biochemistry student, paints part of a promotional
banner for The Art Project. Students from all majors are welcome to
participate. The UCLA Art Project is now in its second year. The
group sponsored a similar event last year, called the Day of
Art.
“A lot of students were disappointed that there
wasn’t anyplace on campus where we could really show off our
work,” Wang said. “We decided to do something about it.
Last year, we rented out Ackerman Grand Ballroom, Bruin Plaza and
the Viewpoint Lounge. Everything happened at the same time, films,
art, poetry.”
This year the Art Project decided to take a different approach
to celebrating art on campus by holding part of the event outdoors
instead of entirely inside like last year’s Day of Art.
“We wanted everyone to participate,” Wang said.
“Art sometimes scares people, because they think that it has
to be profound. By having it out in the open we want to say that,
no, it’s not, all this celebration is for you.”
Although the visual arts will be displayed outside, the poetry
portion of the event will remain indoors.
“We’re having the poetry inside because it was too
intimate to just blare out to the world,” Wang said.
“We preferred a more intimate, indoor setting for that part
of the event.”
The Festival of Art also differs from the Day of Art in its
emphasis on the visual arts. Last year’s event included
student films, but the UCLA Art Project limited the Festival of Art
to art forms that seem to receive short shrift on campus.
“Last year we also included film, but this year we decided
not to,” Wang said. “There are already a lot of
opportunities for filmmakers to show their work ““ Short Takes
is coming up, for example. But it seems that there aren’t
many places to show off paintings and other visual arts.”
The second day of the Festival of Art will include interactive
activities, and the public is invited to participate.
There will be finger painting between 3-6 p.m. and all visitors
are encouraged to give free expression to their creative impulses.
This will be followed by an open microphone night, so that people
who get inspired can recite their own poetry and spoken word
pieces.
“Artists can use this opportunity to get in contact with
other artists,” Kennedy said. “We’d like to ask
everyone to stop by. Look at the art openly and, if you like
something, just say so.”
ART: The Festival of Art will be on Bruin Walk
today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, it will be held in the
Kerckhoff Grand Salon from 3-6 p.m.