Many of our campuses’ APIDA spaces came into being in the wake of student protest and political contention. Decades later, we risk forgetting these histories. The AARC and CAPAS are carrying out archival projects meant to preserve institutional memory and share the history of 5C APIDA student life and organizing.
Author: Nadia Hsu
Tranquil by design: A history of Scripps architecture and culture
Visitors to Scripps College are often struck by the beauty and peacefulness of the school’s campus and dorms. The college’s founding residence halls were built to feel like houses, and these architectural choices shape dorm culture and social life at Scripps nearly a century later. Today, they can often feel overbearing.
Behind The Claremont Independent: Its origins, funding and wider impact
The Claremont Independent (The CI) is the only 5Cs student publication that receives funding exclusively from outside sources, instead of from the schools. Earlier this year, the newspaper’s coverage of pro-Palestine action on campus was cited by a letter sent by The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce to Pomona College demanding student disciplinary records related to alleged “occurrences of antisemitism.” Given The CI’s national spotlight, this article seeks to go behind the publication. It reviews their funding sources, national affiliations, and origins in the 1990s to illustrate the CI’s political significance both on campus and beyond.
Williamson Gallery exhibit illuminates political history of Mexican muralist Alfredo Ramos Martínez
You might be unfamiliar with “The Flower Vendors,” the mural tucked inside Scripps’ Margaret Fowler Garden, and with its artist — acclaimed Mexican muralist Alfredo Ramos Martínez.
Ramos Martínez’s work has long been thought of as decorative and apolitical, but a new exhibition at Scripps’ Ruth Chandler Williamson gallery, “Pintor de Poemas,” is reappraising him as anything but.
Pomona planetarium revival brings the stars to campus
Though it’s been around since 2015, Pomona College’s planetarium has in recent years been largely unknown and unused outside the physics and astronomy department. Beginning last fall, efforts to revitalize the planetarium have turned it into a means of connection to both local communities and the night sky.
Vincent Valdez discusses how art can counter apathy
Vincent Valdez’s large-scale portraits confront an apathy and amnesia that pervades the American psyche. At this year’s Pitzer College Art Galleries Pepper Distinguished Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture, the artist discussed the myths we tell ourselves and how art can work against them.
To look from above: ‘The Instrumental Image: Aerial Photography as Problem and Possibility’ at the Benton
The exhibit “The Instrumental Image: Aerial Photography as Problem and Possibility,” on display at the Benton Museum from August 2023 to January 2024, examines the historical use of aerial photography in war, imperialism and surveillance.
Ways of Seeing: Sally Mann’s memory-haunted landscapes
Photographer Sally Mann captures the mythology of the American South in romantic black-and-white landscapes. Art columnist Nadia Hsu PO ’27 speaks to Mann’s work and what photography can tell us about memory.
Ways of Seeing: Modigliani took her eyes
Art columnist Nadia Hsu PO ’27 looks at a portrait drawing by Amedeo Modigliani on view at the Benton, and discusses how portraiture can and can’t represent a person.
Ways of Seeing: Anatomical Drawing and Peeling Back the Skin
“Muscles and Bones of the Leg,” is a Renaissance-era anatomical drawing on view as part of the Benton Museum’s “500 Years of Italian Drawings” exhibition. Art columnist Nadia Hsu PO ‘27 writes about seeing anatomical drawing as self-investigation.