Fashion, mushrooms and ensemble music. All a part of the ARTS FIRST Festival April 27-30. Find out why each of these topics made it into a personal lineup for our blogger.
By Vicki Xu '23
OFA Staff Blogger
ARTS FIRST is one of the most exciting times of my spring semester—an outpouring of student creativity across so many mediums. I’ve compiled a list of events I’m particularly excited about. Maybe I’ll see you around!
Marine Debris Fashion Show Competition
8-10pm Thursday, April 27 | Science Center Plaza
Love fashion? Love technology? Concerned about climate change? Get a front-row runway experience at the first ever marine debris fashion show competition, hosted by the REEF makerspace in partnership with the Office for the Arts, the Lemann Program for Creativity and Entrepreneurship, and the Harvard Office for Sustainability. All the pieces in this show are made from debris commonly found in the oceans or on beaches. Each piece will have an augmented reality component that speaks to some aspect of ocean conservation and pollution. As someone who makes her way to the SEAS building on a weekly basis (but only ever sees the makerspace from the outside), I’m so curious to see what the groups have come up with.
ARTS FIRST Public Art: Fruiting Columns
All Day Thursday April 27 through Sunday, April 30 | Tercentenary Theater
Mushrooms embody an interaction between death and life that I find fascinating. They’re so often a symbol of decay and rot, but they themselves possess enormous fecundity. The Fruiting Columns installation, which will be up over the entire weekend, is a collaborative piece by four students at the Graduate School of Design exploring how mushrooms might represent hope and repair in the web of contradictions their existence occupies. Stop by for a glimpse.
Concert Premiere of Student Works by Parker Quartet
6pm Friday, April 28 | Holden Chapel
I learned of the Parker Quartet on a YouTube chamber music deep-dive while I was still in high school. Now, in a cool full-circle moment as I near the end of college, student composers from Music 161: Advanced Composition will be presenting original pieces performed by the quartet. If CompFest has left you with an appetite for more student work, or if you’re a chamber music lover like me, come take a listen!
For the full list of events happening during the festival, visit the ARTS FIRST Calendar Channel and view the ARTS FIRST Program and the interactive Performance Fair Grid.