Digital Collections Willamette University
Not a member yet
16804 research outputs found
Sort by
Test
No full textDescription information written here. Super neat stuff.Abstract information written here. So fun
Panoramic View of Attendees Listening to Student Speaker at Mr. Alfonso Guzmán's Dedication Ceremony
No full textPanoramic photograph of attendees attentively listening to an undergraduate student speaking during Mr. Alfonso Guzmán's dedication ceremony
simiya sudduth 2025
No full textThe Confluence Tarot is a decolonial reinterpretation of the Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, rooted in the cultural and ecological landscapes of the Mississippi River Valley. As a mixed-race Black and Indigenous, queer, femme, neurodivergent mother and artist, I created this project to critique exclusionary narratives in traditional tarot and to center communities historically erased from its imagery.
Through a developing body of illustrated cards and an accompanying playlist, the work combines visual art, sound, and public practice to create an immersive tool for reflection, divination, and healing. The imagery draws on archival, historical, and contemporary sources to embed local histories, ancestral symbols, and lived experiences into the visual language of the deck. The playlist, spanning hip hop, soul, jazz, R&B, and experimental sound, extends each archetype into the sonic realm, inviting a multisensory engagement with the cards.
Emerging from my transdisciplinary practice in public art, sound healing, and community care, The Confluence Tarot operates as both a spiritual tool and a cultural critique. It challenges systems of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and ableism, while affirming practices of joy, rest, and collective liberation. This thesis documents the project’s development and theoretical grounding, positioning The Confluence Tarot as an offering of reclamation, resistance, and transformation
Morgan Rice 2024
No full textXanadu is a tabletop role-play game about social construction: the concept that societies collectively invent the terms that then come to define reality. My purpose is to suggest that there is revolutionary power in this, and to explore the ways in which play, imagination, and nonlinear storytelling can develop viable descriptions of reality outside of Western constructs.
My artwork often responds to observations about social systems and epistemologies. From what I observe, the systems that dominate societies worldwide derive primarily from slavery, war, and supremacist Western ideologies, and work in tandem to power a centuries-long process of mass exploitation. In my thesis work, I wanted to distill these intertwining systems into a microcosm that names and deconstructs, but does not reproduce, the violence of these systems of oppression, while making space for creative experimentation with alternatives.
Writing the game was also a way of creating a context for the artwork I would make in response to it. The exhibition is designed to show the temporality of the project’s composition, and to offer thematic breadcrumbs about the game’s narrative universe. It functions as a pathway, wall-papered with notes and early concept sketches that give way to more concrete game materials, alongside symbolic works relating to the game’s themes of performativity, social construct, authoritarianism, and community. The “destination” at the end of the pathway mimics the scene in which player-characters find themselves when the game begins
Unsettling Willamette’s Eco-History: An Oral History Project with Alfonso Guzmán
No full textOral history paper titled "Unsettling Willamette’s Eco-History: An Oral History Project with Alfonso Guzmán" authored by Ananya Gupta, Itzel Garibay Cervantes, Lydia Hoffner, Merry Smith, Tania Lopez Flores, and Vera Sieck
Tania Bejarano 2024
No full textA 2D animation visual development pitch about a girl who is cooking special dishes to remember her late grandmother. However, through this process of cooking there are stages of grief portrayed through each dish, symbolizing her heartache for her grandmother. Set in 1930s Mexico
Megita Denton 2024.
No full textThe Gathering Project
Megita Denton, Thesis Abstract
At its core, The Gathering Project is an inclusive reimagining of the public art process through holistic, conceptual, and philosophical designs that are rooted in Indigenous philosophies, in pursuit of transformative change. Such philosophies honor that all beings “have a seat at the table,” which denies human exceptionalism, and provides sacred ways of recognizing the land as the connector of all beings. How we steward land, interact with her, and live alongside her directly sculpts the physical, spiritual, and metaphysical realities of our existence. This way of being with the land is the antithesis of capitalism. I am trying to “gather” all of these factors, elements and beings together to reconceptualize how we engage, finance, view, design, and allow public art in common spaces. The Gathering Project is shedding light on public land art processes for the artist, viewer, and gatekeepers of public art. My arrow is pointing to the resculpting of this process in pursuit of an evolution of public art accessibility for all stakeholders. All elements of my thesis, The Gathering Project, were created at Camp Colton and at my home studio, Able Farms PDX, due to unfortunate inadequacies of PNCA resources and facilities.
This project presents a temporary installation as an artistic concept which suggests alternative ways of engaging with the public art process and design. The four tangible elements are:
The Four Elements
Wind/Air - Schematic Diagram
Earth - Bio-Anchors (ecologically informed sculptures)
Water - Living Thesis Document
Fire - Manifesto, ⇺Outside of Art⍈
The Gathering Project explores how an independent artist navigates the public art process and encourages viewers to rethink the design and production of public art in this city’s current system
Attendees Choosing Vegatables from Table
No full textPhotograph of attendees selecting vegetables from a picnic table during Mr. Alfonso Guzmán's dedication ceremony