Ice on Us
Ice on Us is a collective project conceptualized, designed, and executed by George Mason University School of Art students in a class dedicated to art as social action. This project – born from the minds of graphic designers, art history majors, painters and sculptors – brought different people of different ages and different backgrounds together to achieve one goal: to spark conversation with fellow humans about something that matters to us.
As a play on the words “eyes on us,” and a nod to a rise in issues related to immigration in the U.S., our goal was to draw attention to broad feelings and sentiments in response to certain events occurring in the political and social climate.
Project Background and Development
Our creative process involved many individuals, and many teams fulfilling multiple roles. One of us designed the logo, others came up with thought-provoking handouts. One team planned out, gathered the resources, and built the cart. Another team established a social media presence while another went out to interview students walking around campus to ask them questions like: What would you change in your community? What hope do you have for the future? From those responses, we came up with shortened phrases, obtained molds and froze letters to be later deployed by the performance group.
During the performance itself, the frozen letters are carefully placed into a cooler, wheeled to a specific destination, and then methodically taken out one by one to spell out a word to prompt some kind of dialogue (wither with us, with themselves, or with others.)
A key part of the social exchange process includes handing out special packets that contain the seeds of pollinator plants as a metaphor for sewing “seeds of change” within all of us.
Cart Building
Art by Courtney Cantu 