Robyn Love in collaboration with the Simmons College community have created Unconditional Yes, a mixed-media installation and performance.
Artist Robyn Love seeks answers to the question, “Have you ever made a decision with an unconditional yes?” Combining her knitted and crocheted aphorisms with text, objects, and artwork contributed by faculty, staff, students, and alumnae, the exhibition is both inclusive and provocative. Transforming the gallery’s center into a temporary “living room.”
A knitted trail pieced together from communal donations leads visitors to the “living room.”
Love explains, “I am hoping to encourage people to look a little deeper at some of their ideas about themselves. I think if we really consider why we make our choices, we can take responsibility for them and that gives us a lot of freedom. Also I hope that the process of creating this exhibition together will generate a renewed sense of community at Simmons.”
Simmons Arts Administration majors collaborated with Love on many aspects of the project, suggesting the knitted trail (inspired by Love’s The Knitted Mile), developing publicity, encouraging community participation, knitting, and creating and maintaining a blog and Facebook page. One Arts Administration student noted, “We wanted to have the trail be all different colors and textures, representing the diversity of Simmons as a whole.”
Unconditional Yes
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 25 from 5-7 p.m. at the Simmons College Trustman Art Gallery, fourth floor, Main College Building, 300 The Fenway, in Boston. The Simmons Choir will perform beginning at 6 p.m.
Exhibition dates : March 20 – April 18. Gallery hours:10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.The gallery is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible. For more information, contact Marcia Lomedico at 617-521-2268.
Robyn Love will be in the gallery – in the living room – from Monday to Thursday, March 22 – 25, working and talking with visitors about the idea of Unconditional Yes. Love will also host periodic knit-togethers during the course of the installation.
Unconditional Yes is curated by Michele Cohen, Director of the Trustman Gallery and Assistant Professor, Arts Administration Program and the students in class AA390 who have been integral to the development of this project.
Image credits: All images courtesy of Simmons College, Trustman Gallery
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