Posters that were put up last week over an on-campus mural with messages that many interpreted as deriding the queer community have provoked just what the student who posted them wanted: discussion.
The postings came about as a result of a project in an Experimental College course on performance art. Since their discovery and partial removal last Tuesday, they have sparked a Tufts University Police Department report and an investigation by Office of the Dean of Student Affairs. They have also provoked ongoing dialogue over free speech, the institution of marriage and about how the greater Tufts community engages and views issues pertaining to social justice.
The posters, which conveyed messages disparaging gay marriage displayed over photographs of a penis and of a naked man with a sex toy, were part of a bigger collection of an ExCollege class' work posted on top of a mural that the artist Shepard Fairey put up on Jan. 24 next to the Jumbo Express convenience store at the campus center. The other posters attacked subjects ranging from Israel to President Barack Obama.
Milan Kohout, a performance artist and the lecturer who teaches the class "Guerilla Performance Art and Politics," asked students to design political posters and floated the idea of placing them over a mural.
"Students had the assignment to create political posters in the sort of similar game of Shepard Fairey," said Kohout, who called Fairey a "hypocrite" who has sold himself out. "I asked them to create posters that would use the principle of freedom of speech ... I didn't censor the expression of my students at all because I believe that it is actually the university ground which should ... nurture the principle of freedom of speech."
An individual who said he was a gay student told the Daily last week that he put up the gay marriage-related posters with the intention of promoting discussion about the general concept of marriage. The person, who requested anonymity, said he did not aim to offend anyone.
Bias Education and Awareness Team (BEAT Bias), an on-campus group that promotes issues of dialogue and tolerance, held an open meeting yesterday for those affected by the gay marriage postings. Attendance at the meeting, co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs, the LGBT Center and Tufts Hillel, largely consisted of administrators and BEAT Bias members, though.
The group of about 15 discussed issues pertaining to the debate over marriage within the queer community, ways to engage students not involved in issues pertaining to social justice for two hours.
As a jumping-off point, they used the online comments made on sophomore Ryan Heman's Mar. 2 Daily op-ed, a piece that focused on Heman's frustration with the way that the situation has been handled by members of the Tufts community.
Senior Sofia Nelson, who has been involved since her freshman year with the "Group of Six" -- an assemblage of Tufts student centers that seeks to promote diversity -- particularly the LGBT Center, said that the discussion centered around how to engage a larger swath of the Tufts community on topics like race, identity and socioeconomic status.
"The tone was how do we talk about and educate the greater community about these things that they don't necessary feel compelled to ... explore on their own," Nelson said.
On Friday, workers tore down the Fairey mural, after it started to become an "eyesore," according to Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman. Parts of the mural, which consisted of series of modular paper pieces of varying size, had been removed by passersby in recent weeks.
"The wall was becoming a target for graffiti in general," he said.
The university obtained the permission of Fairey and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, which opened an exhibit of the artist's work around the time of the placement of the Tufts mural, before tearing down what remained of the work, Reitman said.
Kohout pointed out that his students placed the posters only over Fairey's mural -- not on other sections of the wall.
"We discussed where to place it, and I suggested that they could consider [creating] another conceptual layer on Shepard Fairey's hypocritical freedom of speech."
Reitman said that the university will continue to investigate the postering throughout this week by talking to students in Kohout's class. His office will also examine rules that relate to vandalism and freedom of speech, particularly as they pertain to material generated by courses at the university, he said.
The incident has brought up questions over the definition of street art, as well, Reitman added.
"What are the rules about a piece like that? It's very complex," Reitman said. "Is it still street art once you sort of endorse it and make it part of Tufts?"
Outside of the investigation, other groups on campus are taking different steps to move beyond the incident. According to LGBT Center Director Tom Bourdon, communication between the administration and the student body, including freshman orientation programming, may serve as first steps to creating safe spaces on campus and respect between students, even if they disagree with each other.
"I think we're really looking at how we can strengthen our efforts to have conversations about diversity and reach people ... that we might not normally get to speak with," Bourdon said.
