The art students of Ball State University need our own public space to show our art. We currently have only display cases and the Center Gallery. Neither of these spaces offer a common public space for students to get their work noticed. The display cases are for professors to show their student’s work. If one student needs an entire area to experimentally show their work, they cannot put it all in a display case. Also, these cases are often overlooked by the rest of the student body because they are not in main areas where other students go. These cases are known for having basic assignments, not whole art pieces. The Center Gallery, along with any other gallery, is for perfected and complete works of art. The space we need is for experimental works, projects that are not quite gallery ready, but either need to be presented to the public, or need public opinion to be perfected. I am a senior photography student at Ball State. I had put up my project on Oct. 13, 2010. With the permission of my professor, I stapled it to the wall. The head of the janitorial staff later contacted her and told her that if I did not take it down before he saw it, it would be considered an act of defacement. I had even expressed to them that I, personally, would happily fix the minor staple holes in the wall. But this did not convince them to let me leave it up. It is very sad to me that we have such a great student body of work, which largely is not seen by the rest of the student body, or even the public. Personally, my work does not exist without an audience and I know of many fellow artists who work in a similar way. Also, presentation is a big part of art. We as students have no way of creatively presenting our work to the public. Something needs to be changed! Please help me and the rest of your fellow students by signing this petition to get a space that we can show our work, not in a gallery, but in our building. This would allow us to play with different ways of presentation and get feedback from the general public! Thank you for your support and I hope something good can come from this failed attempt at displaying my project.

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