Event #4, Fowler Museum

Me at the Fowler Museum Welcome Desk

For my fourth event visit, I explored the Fowler Museum on the UCLA campus.  It is truly incredible that we as a school have a museum on campus, and this gave me the great opportunity to explore an aspect of campus life that I had yet to discover as a freshman.  I would recommend that all students at UCLA visit the Fowler Museum.  It is an incredible resource and the staff are friendly and helpful.

Mannequin dressed in Bandages

The Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem exhibit was created by Vivan Sundaram and opened on April 19th, 2015 to the public.  The exhibition is a combination of two styles embraced by the Indian artist, and many technical and cultural aspects go into making the art unique.  The Gagawaka portion of the show consists of using old medical equipment, from bandages, to carrying carts, to IV bags as shown below, to dress mannequins.  The effect is a creepy, yet memorizing sight.  The Postmortem portion of the exhibit complements the Gagawaka side by showing different parts of the human body.  With both the Gagawaka and Postmortem parts together, viewers are able to see a big picture shrinking down to its individual pieces, and this concept fascinated me.

Mannequin on Carrying Table

Our study of medical technology in relationship to art during Week 4 definitely connected to this show.  Sundaram could have dressed the mannequins in human clothes, but instead, he chose to use medical equipment which can be seen in hospitals.  The style in which he placed them on each body however, made it look like a new fashion in an alternate universe.  In the movie Zealander, Will Ferrell's character puts on a fashion show in which all the models where street trash as clothing.  Similarly, the style created by Sundaram is captivating and a culmination of many worlds in one.  I do not think that the exhibit will influence my final project, but knowing the amount of time that people spend in hospitals, and the good that medical technology does, helps me to really appreciate the style created and the relevance it has in the lives of so many.

Mannequin Dressed in IV Bags

Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem Exhibit

Works Cited

"Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram | Fowler Museum at UCLA." Fowler Museum at UCLA. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://fowler.ucla.edu/exhibitions/making-strange-gagawaka-postmortem-vivan-sundaram>. 

Sundaram, Vivan. Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem. 2015. Fowler Museum, UCLA.