{"id":480,"date":"2022-03-22T18:48:14","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T18:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/sashp-beloved-community\/?page_id=480"},"modified":"2022-04-14T13:12:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T13:12:29","slug":"section-h1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/sashp-beloved-community\/section-h1\/","title":{"rendered":"Section H1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Arnav Borborah, Furkan Cakir, Rithi Chauhan, Paige Dadika, Aidan Holeman, Ved Jain, Lauren Johnson, Prachi Lad, Eric Lee, Meera Patel, Ryan Smith, Christopher Tai, Aayushi Vyas, Linda Zamrowski, Julianna Zhang<\/p>\n

Facilitator: Charles Keeton<\/p>\n

Pieces of \u2018R\u2019 Community<\/em><\/p>\n

2022
\nPhotographic collage, 20×30 in.
\nRutgers School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program
\nHonors Colloquium Section H1<\/p>\n

A place is not complete without the presence of the people within it. This work highlights the vibrance that only people can bring to our community. The artists convey this by creating a contrast between the places of New Brunswick in black and white and the people of Rutgers shown in color. Take a closer look to see the individual experiences of the artists\u2019 and reflect on how your own align.<\/p>\n

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In his address to the University Senate on Sept. 25, 2020<\/a>, President Holloway stated that \u201ca university should aspire to be a beloved community.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Here is how we brought together our beloved community through our artwork\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From a distance the image is a blur of photos but as you get closer you can see all of the intricate pieces that work together to create a piece that highlights the contrast between a community that exemplifies Rutgers culture with faces of vibrancy and a community that is colorless without such. The selection process of the images we\u2019ve chosen to include forced us to deepen our understanding of a community. From an entire album we honed in on images that elicited a response asking ourselves questions like \u201cwhich images hold that sense of liveliness that we want to express?\u201d \u201cwhich images show off Rutgers campus for its culture as opposed to any college campus?\u201d Keeping these questions and many more in mind allowed us to construct a piece that we can confidently say represents a beloved community. -Rithi Chauhan\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Not all communities are the same. Distinct experiences, challenges, and obstacles shape up a community. Our interactions, conversations, and relationships enable collaboration in order to achieve a common goal. Consequently, our community can then flourish into a more sophisticated, unique place. -Furkan Cakir<\/span><\/p>\n

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Due to the diversity within Rutgers it was difficult to fully define what, as a community, we all have in common. The only true answer is Rutgers, and the physical places we inhabit. From there, our experiences are entirely our own, and so we attempted to create a piece that represented what was universal, as well as what was personal.\u00a0<\/span>-Paige Dadika<\/span><\/p>\n

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Throughout the process of creating our art piece, we pondered the idea of what a beloved community at Rutgers represented. We knew that diversity and inclusion of all of its members would be our top priority. However, due to the large size of our school, it was proven to be a difficult task. In our collage, we took snapshots of our classmates to resemble our experiences amongst the many places of Rutgers. This is our story and hope to represent the unity that Rutgers entails. -Prachi Lad\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The collage shows a small portion of the people and places that we fondly cherish in our school. Even though all of our experiences couldn\u2019t be shared through this work, it represents what we love about our community, and we hope to portray our shared endearment for Rutgers. -Ved Jain<\/span><\/p>\n

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In our collaborative process in creating this collage, we as a group were able to develop a better understanding of the varying facets and experiences that define Rutgers. The variation in the types of images and people represented show how we all have differing origins yet can still come together as a beloved community with shared goals. -Arnav Borborah<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rutgers is a constantly-shifting community of people, where each individual is uniquely important. No one experience can define Rutgers, because Rutgers in itself is a culmination of multivariable people and the new, different ideas they bring to the conversation. Although this piece wouldn\u2019t be able to begin to define truly, wholly what Rutgers is, it shows, at least, a piece of what Rutgers means to us. -Julianna Zhang<\/span><\/p>\n

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The collage synthesizes how a group of Rutgers students define our beloved community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[There is a] need, often an uncomfortable one, to listen to others with whom you may have some deep disagreement. In the act of authentic listening, one is demonstrating that the disputants have something more valuable in common: an acknowledgement that they both belong to the same community and that they both share the obligation to take care of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

-President Holloway<\/span><\/p>\n

When tasked with creating an image that encompasses the community as a whole, we knew that there would be no way to include everyone and everything. There were disagreements about what was essential to include and how we should portray it, but in the end this piece is a result of compromise, as is the community it represents. President Holloway’s recognition that a community will not always be cohesive is reflected in the battle for attention that is occurring between the images in this piece. Just as the images come together to create the larger \u201cR,\u201d the artists had to come together to portray, to the best of their ability, a beloved community. This is a reflection of the everyday compromise that members of a community must engage in in order to recognize commonalities and work towards solidarity. -Lauren Johnson<\/span><\/p>\n

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We had a really difficult time articulating what a community is, especially when it comes to Rutgers because it spans three cities, on campus, off campus, students, faculty, places, events, alumni, (insert your name here), etc. It is nearly impossible to include all parts of the community under one single definition. When we spent time pulling apart our own experiences, we were able to come up with some characteristics that helped convey what a \u201cbeloved community\u201d feels like:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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  • Comfort\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Safety\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Subtlety\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Team\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Familiarity<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Identity<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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  • Attention\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Acceptance\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Authenticity\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Connection\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • New beginnings<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Excitement\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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