Take A Seat

“Take A Seat” is the Senior Thesis Art Project of Marc Boas. It consists of two parts, the first part being a mural located in the foyer of Neighbors Place. For this project, Boas worked in collaboration with Project Neighbors, an organization that aims to provide affordable housing to residents of Valparaiso. Neighbors Place is one of their biggest projects, serving as a home for women in need of affordable housing. Boas met and worked with these women to inform both the design and process of his mural. The project is focused around the theme of community and diversity. The work seeks to give a representation of what Project Neighbors and the community of Neighbors Place stand for. The spectator is encouraged to, metaphorically speaking, “take a seat” at the table of Project Neighbors. This imagery was inspired by Dutch genre paintings of the 17th centuries, by artists such as Gerard van Honthorst, where compositional elements are used to place the viewer in the same space as the subjects. The second part of the art project is a digital animation, created by repeatedly photographing the progress of the wall in order to obtain a stop motion effect. It carries the same themes and messages as the mural itself, but seeks to heighten this narrative by highlighting/bringing to life certain aspects of what Project Neighbors represents. The final works will be on display both in Neighbors Place (permanent) and the Brauer Museum of Art (Senior Student Art Show)