Jason Smith may seem like your typical junior Criminal Justice major, but as a co-founder of the Art Collaborative, he is anything but. His new effort is bringing together students on campus of all artistic talents and interests, regardless of major, to produce exciting, new content as a unified group.
Every semester the Art Collaborative, with Lucas Merat as their current president, hosts events at which they try to raise awareness of the arts scene on campus—covering music, art, performance, film, etc—by creating a multi-media exhibit showcasing their work.
The idea came to them last October, and though their first event over a year ago mainly focused on music, the most recent one held on March 30th in AfterHours really embraced the multi-faceted mediums of the art the world. “This event was special,” Smith said. “It was the first event completely created by us.”
As an organization, the Art Collaborative tries to attract people who have an interest in the arts and want to get involved and continue working with it. They hold workshops in different locations where they teach something different to all the members.
“We’ve had balloon artists come in, we’ve held one on screen painting, night studio photography, among others,” he said. “Our goal is to spread art, the culture of art, around campus. The point is to have people with different artistic backgrounds to come together.”
The overarching reason for the creation of this collaborative in the first place was to create a sense of community in as many aspects as possible through art at Northeastern. To put it simply: they are here to encourage, foster, and help students.
“With the Art Collaborative we want to work as facilitators with people who have ideas and turning those ideas into something,” Smith emphasized. In the upcoming fall semester they’ll be working with music clubs such as the Songwriters Club, Green Line Records and WRBB. A festival, spearheaded by Green Line Records, is on their calendar for next semester.
“We are all about getting everyone together—bridge people as individuals but also bridge clubs together,” he said.
The focus of their programming is all geared towards building a community for artists on campus. They understand that sometimes students with a passion for the arts can feel isolated at Northeastern, but they want to remind them they are not alone.
“We want everyone to feel awesome,” Smith said enthusiastically. “Because everyone is awesome!”
For more information on programs and events, follow the Art Collaborative on Facebook or take a look at their videos on Vimeo.
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