Temporary Art by Teresita Fernández Activates Harvard Yard until October 1: Autumn (…Nothing Personal)

“Autumn (…Nothing Personal) is a public sculpture by the artist Teresita Fernández on view August 27 through October 1, 2018. Commissioned by the Harvard University Committee on the Arts, the installation is both a physical site and a space for public dialogue and performance.”( quoted from the project website: Autumn (…Nothing Personal)

“The project is in part inspired by American novelist and social critic James Baldwin’s text, “Nothing Personal,” published in 1964 at the height of the civil rights movement. Baldwin’s essay, originally produced alongside images by the photographer Richard Avedon, explores the complexities and contradictions at the center of the American experience and offers a critique of a society that is disconnected, unjust, divisive, and violent through his personal reflections and perspectives. Yet Baldwin ends his work speaking of love, light, and trust.” ( quoted from Harvard Gazette Events Calendar)

“The installation comprises concentric rings of long, curved wooden benches with backings made of semi-illuminated yellow and orange tubes. Planning for the sculpture, which was fully installed in the Yard August 27, began two years ago. “I knew I wanted to create an artwork that wasn’t passive, that didn’t just get ‘plopped down’ on the Harvard campus,” Fernández wrote in an email. “I developed dialogues, met with many individuals, collaborated, brainstormed, and formed relationships at Harvard for almost two years in order to create a work that people could feel invested in.” (quoted from Harvard Crimson article by Andrea M. Bossi and Annie C. Doris)

Events in the Space

Day by day, this space generates staged and spontaneous creative activity. I’m posting now with basic information (see Key Resources below) so that anyone who lives near enough, as I do, can truly be there while it’s still up in September. Photos from events I’ve been to might hint at how they were.