convocation: alexandra bell

 

A Teenager With Promise, 2017 

It was such a great experience getting to listen to Alexandra Bell, the newest convocation speaker. To my knowledge Bell has been to first artist convocation speaker to present in a very long time, so it was really special to see. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the talk in person at the chapel, but I did tune in to watch the livestream of it. 

Bell was a great speaker. She just spoke so eloquently, and felt really down-to-earth and friendly when throughout her presentation. Bell is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses on what she calls "counternarratives," and how to care for those whose humanity has been overlooked or discarded. 

It was really interesting to hear about her background and process in coming up with and creating these counternarratives. From studying journalism at Columbia, to combining art and news to make her pieces. From putting up her work illegally using wheat paste, to having it hung up in galleries. Bell's career timeline shows the hard work she has put into her art and the success that has come out of it. 

What stuck out to me from her talk was how she explained that people sometimes think that when something is published it's a closed issue, counternarratives offer the space of reopening it. Through her talk it encourages people to take a closer look at the media they're consuming and maybe come in with a more critical lens. It definitely made me look inwards and think about how I myself consume media what I can take from this. 

Counternarratives can also connect a lot to what Jean Baudrillard talks about in Simulations. The main quote on the back of the book says, "The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always reproduced: That is, the hyperreal...which is entirely in simulation." Counternarratives in a similar fashion is the a reproduction of the real and thus is hyperreal, a simulation. However, was the thing real in the first place, or is it becoming real after Bell's edits. The news is presenting things wrong, mixing facts with truths, so maybe in that sense Bell is making the unreal real through her counternarratives.