Free Cooper Union Banks on Banksy
Free Cooper Union students have been protesting The Cooper Union’s board of Trustees’ decision to charge tuition in light of their not-so-recent financial troubles since its announcement last April. The school, founded by Peter Cooper, opened under the mission that the highly selective school for artists, engineers, and architects would be free for all those who merited admission.
Until now.
The board of trustees, headed by president Jamshed Bharucha, made a decision to charge tuition instead of closing the school’s doors. The decision, made on the school’s inability to continue to financially uphold free tuition for all of its students, shell-shocked all who looked to the school as a beacon of hope for free educational opportunity. This decision has generated ‘Free Cooper Union’ activism from all of the school’s disciplines, and even its alumni. Protest has included:
Occupation of President Jamshed Bharucha’s ofiice on the seventh floor of the foundation building:
Artistic renditions of the Board of Trustees’ faces on matchboxes (assumed to portray the destruction created by their decisions, like the destruction a fire can create):
Painting of the school’s architecture studios black (in mourning):
Most recently, vandalism of vandalism in the form of an anonymous graffiti artist was seen on the walls of a concrete piece of coastal pipeline in the East Village of New York. This artist re-faced the street art of infamous graffiti artist “Banksy” to make a statement about The Cooper Union’s creator and the current president.
It looked something like this:
Now, after the midnight vandalism, it looks something like this:
On the right presides a rendition of Jamshed, in the position of confessor, with his eyes to Peter Cooper. His hands are together in a sign of request, presumably for the forgiveness of the excellently bearded man.
Bansky’s pope has been remodeled into Peter Cooper, looking distraught, signifying the genius and innovator’s sadness over the school’s deviation from the mission with which he created the institution. Many students feel it would be better to shut down the school than to continue its existence contrary to the pure instructions given by its benefactor.
Either way, keep your eyes peeled for more artistic activism from the Free Cooper Union protesters, they’re armed with a mission and endless energy and creativity.
-Rebecca Najjar
Image sources:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/12/04/nyregion/03cityroom-cooper1/03cityroom-cooper1-blog480.jpg
The Violin of Wallace Henry Hartley
On Saturday, Oct 19, 2013 the long lost violin of Titanic bandmaster, Wallace Hartley was sold at auction for a whopping $1.45 million. While the antiques world is buzzing with the news, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the past of this instrument and of the brave man who owned it.
When I was twelve I went through a nautical phase. I went to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA nearly every weekend. My room was filled with books about ships, and mostly on famous disasters such as the Lusitania and the Titanic. And this was before the movie came out. I was obsessed.
I even owned a model or two.
I remember my mother passing by as I sat on the carpet reading about Wallace Hartley, and she said she thought he was a handsome man.
Hartley learned to play the violin while still young at the Bethel Independent Methodist Chapel where he was a Sunday school superintendent. He pursued a musical career into his adulthood, playing in the Huddersfield Philharmonic orchestra, and later in 1909, when he was hired by the Cunard line to play aboard its ships.
By the time of the Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912, Hartley was soon to wed his fiancee Maria Robinson, and the violin he brought with him on the Titanic, bore an inscription from Maria to commemorate the engagement.
During the sinking, Hartley and his fellow musicians played until the very end, and most reports claim their last song to have been “Nearer my God to Thee.” None of the musicians survived. Two weeks later, Hartley’s body was retrieved, the violin strapped to him. He was buried in England, with over a thousand people in attendance. The violin was given to Maria, and she kept it until her death in 1939. After her death, the violin made a journey of its own through a Salvation Army, the hands a violin teacher, and eventually to its current auction buyer, who remains anonymous.
-Ariella Shapiro
Sources:
http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/19/violin-played-to-passengers-as-titanic-sank-sells-for-a-record-900000-in-auction-4152670/
Divestment Demand:
Why not us, too, Karen Gould?
A movement which I have recently been reading up on and attempting to grapple with is this Divestment Movement happening in colleges across the U.S. and abroad, spurred by environmental activist William McKibben.
Divest- finance: to sell (something valuable, such as property or stock). Verb: To deprive (someone) of power, rights or possessions.
The idea is to get colleges to divest the stocks they have and to freeze any new investments they plan on making in fossil-fuel companies, “because it is unconscionable to pay for our education with investments that will condemn the planet to climate disaster.” The push asks our very own Brooklyn College to rid its investment portfolio of any fossil-fuel stock.
Climate change is a colossal problem that will affect every single living organism on planet Earth, an issue that should be given full attention by all.
Did you know that 70% of the African Penguin population has died off since 2004, one cause of this decline, presumed by scientists, is climate change.
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| Good-bye kisses, perhaps? |
I for one don’t just want to roll over and say, “Well it was a good run,” or (to those unfortunately younger than me) “Good luck… here is a planet that will be devastated more frequently by violent, costly, and deadly storms; I hope I won’t be here when it gets even uglier.”
So, what shall we do?
Well, I am on a journey to figure it out and I’m calling you to get involved with me. Movements aim to bring together people with different skill sets in order to make a difference. There is a petition – that includes Brooklyn College – which asks for 100 signatures (I am only number seven on this list). The goal of this website is to raise awareness, and serve as a platform and catalysis for change in communities near you.
Check out the website here
Check out the Brooklyn College petition out here
There are more questions to be asked about divestment, about our very own college’s investment situation, and of course I am sure there are risks and difficulties involved to deter, most of which are unknown to me, but can they really be worse than supporting companies who are damning us to environmental ruin? Can it be more difficult than kissing loved one’s goodbye who may become casualties of climate change disasters? I think not…
-Maegan Ciolino
Sources:
The Junction Journal 