BU Arts Initiative

Affirming Q***r Joy: Call for art and zines! Deadline: Monday, September 30th.

We welcome you to submit artwork and zines to be showcased at our upcoming National Coming Out Celebration: Affirming Q***r Joy. Open to BU students, alumni, faculty, & staff!

This event is a collaboration with the BU LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center and the BU LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.

🔗 Visit this link for the details and to submit: https://forms.gle/CirRErTDQcUjas1s6

Join us for the first Third Thursday event of the semester on the Medical campus: Crafts & Cookies! Along with cookies, there will be materials for collaging, keychain/bracelet making, crocheting, embroidery, and more! 🧵🎨🪡

📆 Thursday, September 19th, 4-5:30 PM
📍 INS 210 (MED Building, 72 E Concord St.)

Third Thursday is co-sponsored by the School of Public Health (), Graduate Student Life: Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine (), Student Affairs Office: Graduate Medical Sciences (), Student Affairs Office: Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and Student Wellbeing ().

BU artists and community members mingled and connected after viewing the Silber Way Exhibition at our reception on Tuesday evening!

🖼️ Visit the 2024/2025 Silber Way Exhibition which features BU staff, faculty, current students, and alumni. On view through June 2025 and located at One Silber Way on the 8th and 9th floors.

🔗 Head to this link to see the online exhibition: https://www.bu.edu/cfa/featured-work/silber-way-exhibition-2024-25/

Our Fall Arts Fair 🍂 last Friday featured over 30 BU and Boston area arts organizations who shared student discounts, volunteer and internship opportunities, upcoming events and performances, and giveaways! The BU Arts Initiative held a raffle for a pair of tickets to our upcoming Arts for 5 to the Boston Ballet Nutcracker. BU Terriers made some amazing chalk art on our chalkboard. made an appearance as well! ✨🐾

🔗 If you missed the 2024 Fall Arts Fair, head to this link to learn more about some of the amazing arts organizations at BU and around Boston: https://www.bu.edu/cfa/news/bu-arts-initiative/experience-the-arts/fall-arts-fair/

The BU Arts Initiative is proud to present the 2024/2025 annual Silber Way Exhibition, which is on view through the end of the Spring 2025 semester. Join us for the reception on Tuesday, September 10th, from 5-7 pm. You'll have the opportunity to chat with some of the featured artists and see all the works on view.

📆📍Silber Way Reception Details:
Tuesday, September 10th, 5-7pm
One Silber Way, 9th Floor Kenmore Room (Room 916)

🖼️ This juried exhibition features work created by current Boston University students, alumni, staff, and faculty. Pieces exhibited range from various mediums including mixed media, painting, printmaking, and photography. These works are currently on display on the 8th and 9th floors of Silber Way.

🔗 Visit this link for more info and to RSVP for the reception: https://www.bu.edu/cfa/news/bu-arts-initiative/get-involved/exhibition-performance-opportunities/silber-way-exhibition/

Meet our returning Office Assistant, Katelyn Holland! ✨🎨

Katelyn (she/her) is a sophomore majoring in Advertising and minoring in Visual Arts and Innovation & Entrepreneurship. She has worked at the Arts Initiative for the past year and is an artist herself focusing on drawing and graphic design. She has a strong passion for art itself and the communities that surround art. She is on the track to becoming an Art Director or Graphic Designer. Outside of schooling and work, she enjoys spending time with friends, cooking, and watching video essays. Katelyn is excited to continue to forge connections and opportunities for her community through the BUAI.

Meet Kathy, our new Office Assistant!

Kathy (She/Her) is a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in French and Cinema Studies. She is originally from Beijing, China, and has lived in Canada for a few years. Besides school, Kathy enjoys watching movies and visiting museums. She is also a K-pop dancer! Kathy is excited to engage the BU Community in the arts.

Meet our Graduate Assistant, Lucas! ✨ 🎶

Lucas (he/him) is a first-year master's student in CFA music composition. A graduate of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee ('18), Lucas has written and commissioned music for various ensembles, orchestras, vocalists, and has attended music festivals that premiere new works by young composers. He also enjoys writing songs and releasing electronic music independently. Lucas is excited to be back in Boston and meet musicians and artists to work with at the CFA over the next two years.

Outside of music and work, he enjoys coffee and being a barista, exploring New England nature, cooking, biking, and caring for his pitbull lab and bearded dragon, Pepper and Clementine.

As the BUAI Graduate Assistant, Lucas is excited to engage with the Student Advisory Council and the BU student body through curated events at the university and in the city of Boston.

📣 Join us for the 2024 BU Fall Arts Fair on Friday, September 6th at the GSU Plaza! Come check out the BU Arts Initiative, BU Arts Programs, academic units, and selected Boston area arts organizations to explore all the arts that BU and Boston have to offer. Look for discounts, special offers, and internship opportunities. Enter a raffle for a chance to win a pair of tickets to see the Blue Man Group live at the Charles Playhouse. Visit this link for more information: bu.edu/arts/fair

🍂 BU Fall Arts Fair 2024
📆 Friday, September 6, 2024 | 11am-2pm
📍 GSU Plaza (in front of the George Sherman Union at 775 Commonwealth Ave.)
(Ziskind Lounge Rain Location)

🖼️✨ “Converging Visions: Exploring Perception” features work from two student artists in the class of 2024 at , Michelle Qian and Tracy He. These two students created works in their Advanced Art course during their senior year at BU Academy.

Michelle's work portrays how teens are affected by different types of media. She is inspired by her own experiences and emotions, as well as the community around her, to creatively show how media impacts people in social settings and their mental health.

Tracy's work explores portraiture through loose forms and minimal colors. She is inspired by the works of David Bailey Ross and Françoise Pétrovitch and strives to convey each subject’s emotion in the irregular mixing of ink and colors. She is interested in how drastically she can alter something mundane until it is no longer recognizable.

📆 "Converging Visions" will be on view outside the BU Arts Initiative Office on the 2nd floor of the GSU through September 23rd.

📣 Apply now to be part of our team as a Student Council Member!

Are you a student leader interested in engaging students in the arts? Do you have a passion for the arts or arts programming? Are you looking to expand your leadership skills? If so, we encourage you to apply to be part of the BU Arts Initiative Student Council 24/25.

🖼️ Selected students will lead the student art gallery, Arts Insiders events, and special events. We are accepting applications on a rolling basis.

🔗 Learn more about this role and apply here: forms.gle/eiqWUgZJYcHpNtfh7

The BU Arts Initiative was proud to work with five BU students and BU Dean of Students to create an art walk featuring Black BU artists at BU's Juneteenth BBQ this year! Featured artists included Ajani Hickling CAS '27, Anita Emokpae CFA '25, Brianna Matey CAS '27, David Fils-Aimé CAS '26, and Gabriel Joy Reid CFA '25 ().

These works are on display in our office through mid-September. Stop by anytime during our open office hours to check them out!

✨Call for digital art!✨

The BU Arts Initiative's Triptych Window Installation submissions are now open!
Make your mark on campus and have your work on display in a high-traffic location at the GSU.

🌱 The BU Arts Initiative will handle all printing costs and selected artists will receive financial compensation.
⭐️ Submissions must be formatted to the following dimensions: Triptych with dimensions 87” x 34” per panel, to fit three big windows above the stairs (87”x102” total).
🌷The deadline to submit for the 2024/2025 exhibition is Wednesday, June 12.

Visit this link to submit: https://www.bu.edu/arts/artist-opportunities/

Last Friday we hosted our spring Study Break: Bookmaking 📚 & Buns 🍞, featuring local artist, Liticia Avery (Lend a Hand Designs) ✨

Students made their own handstitched books with guidance from Liticia. Sweet and savory buns from Corner Cafe Bakery in Chinatown were eaten! Swipe to see more pictures from the event.

Our April Arts Insiders workshop was a special Earth Day event! Julio César Román from Micro Plant Studios facilitated joyful, interactive community-building activities before guiding students through a mindful plant potting process. As Julio reminded us, "our network is our net worth" and caring for our new succulents is just as important as caring for our fellow human beings. Special thanks to Julio and BU Sustainability for partnering with us!

Check out our latest installation located above the GSU stairs, featuring "Home" by Yuka Masamura (CFA '25, COM '25). Swipe to see more and read on to learn more about "Home" from the artist.

"I grew up in Japan. I never imagined that I would live outside of the country until the huge earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, leaving everyone devastated. I became scared of water after the heartbreaking event, but this view changed over time. Fearful of the radiation leak, my family ended up moving out of Japan. I lived and studied away from home and my family kept on moving from one place to another. I felt very lost like I didn't have a place that I could call home anymore. However, through many encounters that touched my heart, I learned that home for me is where people I love are – which is now everywhere across the globe, crossing the ocean. Through this piece, I wanted to share this comforting and magical feeling of home transcending space, even the vast ocean. I made the patterns thinking of origami papers that I grew up folding. I hope that when people look at this in the GSU, they are excited and comforted like BU is their new piece of home."
- Yuka Masamura

Learn more about Yuka's work on Instagram or by visiting yukamasamura.com

Take a break from finals with buns and a pop-up bookmaking workshop!

Stop by on May 3rd from 1:30 pm - 4 pm at BU Arts Initiative - George Sherman Union. There will be guided instructions by bookbinder Liticia, owner of Lend a Hand Designs, on 2-3 handmade books. There will be an option to flex your creativity by creating your own hand drawn cover or you can use the materials provided and focus on creating your book. You can stay the whole time or pop in for a short time! There will be options for everyone.

It's the moment we've all been waiting for! Curating the Body's Final Showcase will take place on Monday, April 29 at 7 PM in the LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center! Please attend to hear all about this semester-long series on the intersection of the arts and reproductive justice. Students will share their reflections and inspirations through spoken word, visual art, monologues, and more.

If you'd like to participate and submit your work, please visit the link in our bio!

Our last Third Thursday of the semester on Med Campus was a very relaxing one as students dropped in to create their own zentangle while snacking on zebra cakes. We'll continue with our next Third Thursday in the fall, so stay tuned!

Thank you for joining us for our Trans & Gender Expansive Art Showcase Reception on Tuesday, April 9th! We had the Non-Conformists orchestra perform pieces composed by POC and/or LGBTQIA+ folks. After the reception, the exhibit was up for a week in the LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center.

Check out the online exhibition and consider supporting a local artist! https://www.bu.edu/arts/tge2024/

Silber Way is now accepting submissions!

We invite local alumni, faculty, staff, and students to enter artwork into this juried exhibition. 2D works including, but not limited to, painting, textiles, photography, drawing, printmaking, and graphic design, are welcome. The deadline to submit is Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

If selected, you must be able to drop off and retrieve your piece from the Boston University Arts Initiative office at 775 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA. We will not return shipped pieces. Please only submit pieces that are for sale.

To submit please go to https://www.bu.edu/arts/silber-way-exhibit/.

Are you an artist? Do you have work relating to reproductive justice and the human body? Submit your artwork by April 22 to be included in Curating the Body's Final Showcase! All semester long, we've been learning about the intersection of arts and reproductive justice. In this showcase, students will share their reflections through original artwork, including spoken word, visual art, collaging, and more! We're still accepting submissions, even if you've never attended a session before. Just submit through the link in our bio!

Join us at BU Med Campus this Thursday 4-5:30pm for our last Third Thursday of the semester! Stop by to create your zentangle and snack on nostalgic zebra cakes. See you there! ✨

Third Thursday is co-sponsored by the School of Public Health, Graduate Student Life: Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Student Affairs Office: Graduate Medical Sciences, Student Affairs Office: Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and Student Wellbeing.

We're happy to announce Sonia Bolshakova (CDS '24) as our featured artist for our Spring Student Gallery Exhibition! Bolshakova is a senior Bioinformatics major whose work represents snippers of her life through a nostalgic, dream-like lens. Bolshakova takes much inspiration from favorite illustrator Tomer Hanuka's expressive color palettes and character designs.

Join us next Friday, April 19 from 5:30 - 6:30 PM for a gallery reception in our office! It will be an evening of inspiring art talks, visual art exercises, and snacks!

Our First Friday event with Zentangle and Zebra Cakes last week was a relaxing break thanks to our amazing zentangle facilitator, Anna Been, from SHS Behavioral Medicine! Students made such unique zentangles. We hope to see you at our Study Break event with bookbinding and other crafts on Friday, May 3rd!

In just a couple hours, we'll have another Reproductive Justice Art Making session with Curating the Body! This semester, we've been learning how reproductive justice plays out in our lives and using art to express our perspectives. Come create with fellow students interested in these topics!

Join us for art, joy, food, and community to celebrate the creative imaginations and voices of trans and gender-expansive artists. This space is meant to foster conversations regarding sociopolitical and personal meanings of gender, self-expression, trans joy, and resistance through art.

Special performance by the Non-Conformists Orchestra, a transgender/non-binary, LGBTQ+, and minority-inclusive professional orchestra based in the Boston area.

RSVP at the link to attend: https://forms.gle/YETFuoPJmeVvHBh6A

✨ co-sponsored by the LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center () and BU Arts Initiative ✨

Only a few hours left of ! Thanks to our 2024 Giving Day sponsor and CFA Dean’s Advisory Board member, Frank Ginsberg (CFA’65). Every 125 donors to CFA unlocks $5,000 in bonus funds until we hit our goal of 250 donors.

Ready to participate in BU Giving Day? Head to the link in our bio to make your gift to the Arts Initiative!

is in full swing! The BU Arts Initiative has the opportunity to see students of all academic disciplines get creative and explore their passions. We strive to create opportunities to cultivate community through the arts across campus.

Your gift, large or small, makes a difference in the lives of our current and future Terriers. Ready to participate in BU Giving Day? Head to the link to make your gift! ✨ https://givingday.bu.edu/campaigns/bu-arts-initiative