After students were separated from their peers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a Penn student launched an initiative that uses art as a medium to connect creative students across the country.
Rising College sophomore Farah Sayed started Equilibria, an arts-exchange initiative, while she was under state-mandated lockdown in Ohio during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic.
Through the initiative, artists and writers submit a piece through a Google Form, receive a piece from a fellow creative, and each artist and writer individually creates one new piece in response to what they receive. At the end of the exchange, each pair of pieces will be displayed side-by-side in a virtual gallery by August.
The goal of Equilibria is to connect students from across the country when they are separated from each other, Sayed said.
“I knew that once classes ended, many of us would be socially isolated from the outside world,” Sayed said. “As both an artist and a writer, I wanted to find a way for students to connect with each other.”
Sayed said 18 students signed up to participate in the first round of submissions. The participants came from six different schools in the United States — Penn, Duke University, Otterbein University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, and Kenyon College.
After individually submitting a creative piece, Sayed formed pairs of artists and writers who will exchange their work with each other, Sayed said.
The creatives have until mid-July to work on a new piece inspired by their partner. Once both the final pieces are done, they will be displayed on a website next to the piece that inspired it, Sayed said.
Equilibria's logo (Artwork by Nina Cywińska)
Rising College sophomore Samantha Costello said she found the exchange to be an exciting source of inspiration and a way to connect with other people.
“I thought it would be pretty cool to be able to be given a completely random piece from someone pretty much anywhere in the country and then take that piece of their life and make my own artistic piece from that," Costello said. "I think you can learn a lot about other people and yourself.”
Rising Wharton senior Rachel Kulik participated in the Equilibria initiative to motivate herself to be creative, as she said she finds it hard to write on her own outside of class assignments.
Rising Wharton sophomore Nancy Zhu said she is hoping to share her art and have fun while connecting with a larger community of artists.
“Exchanges are really cool because it’s a collaborative process. You’re not just making art for yourself, but for everyone,” Zhu said.
Sayed said she has always wanted to start a writing-and-arts initiative and found lockdown to be an appropriate time to do so. Ohio, where Sayed lives, was under a stay-at-home order until May 19.
Through Equilibria, Sayed wants to promote art and writing as ways for people to destress during the pandemic.
“There's less structure and less for us to do with ourselves," she said. "I think using art or writing as a creative outlet hopefully gives our minds a focus on something during what is a really stressful time.”
Looking forward, Sayed said she hopes to continue the project, and perhaps move it from a digital to print product.
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