For The Class Of 2025, A Return To The Classroom Means A Revival Of Artistic Spirit

Upper West Side NY

28 August, 2021

5:34 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY FERNANDA AGUERO AUGUST 27, 2021 One look at Columbia's class of 2025 shows numerous creatives eager for an on-campus start to college. Incoming first-years have explored their adolescence and cultural backgrounds through art, using various mediums to understand their roles in the world. Many incoming first-years had their last in-person high school experiences during their junior year and spent most, if not all, of their senior year online. Columbia, for many of its new arrivals, will be the first place where these students step into a classroom in well over a year. As Columbia's class of 2025 enjoys its last pre-college days, three artists discuss how the past year and their upcoming arrival to New York City marks a new age in their art. Washington state's Taylor Yingshi, CC '25, spent her time crafting custom illustrations for the The Washington Post that depicted how teens reacted to the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots. After the pandemic ushered in a rise of anti-Asian hate, Yingshi created a digital portrait of Minoru "Min'' Yasui, an Oregon-based attorney who worked to challenge the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Yingshi's piece places Yasui in front of his Oregon orchard, dressing him in a suit patterned with newspaper clippings and headlines of Asian activism. The piece was awarded the Grand Prize winner in the ArtEffect Project, a national student art competition, and is now displayed in the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Fort Scott, Kansas. Yingshi donated a portion of her winnings to mutual aid efforts for Asian Americans, joining several of her friends in spreading awareness through their work. "I think that the most important part about making art is [being] able to connect others, connect yourself with others, and … form a community, not just as artists, but even people on the outskirts of the arts community, who may be interested in viewing things that they have struggled to articulate in words," Yingshi said. After several offers asked to pay for her pieces in exposure, Yingshi noticed that many young artists tend to devalue their own work, believing the mass consensus that art should be cheap since it is seen as something not hard to make. She looks forward to surrounding herself in an artistic community that understands the full value of her art. New York's Grace Song, CC '25, focused on her flash fiction over the last year and also guest-curated a young writers episode for the Micro Podcast. Song, a poet and visual artist, channels her relationships with family and friends in her work. Song also blogs about the editing process for her pieces when she's not working on a project. What began as a diary-style series of entries has since grown into a collection of Song's personal iconography that features her literary and musical influences, her experiences in writing programs, and her personal fears of writing. Though Song acknowledges the challenges of the writing process, she returns to scratch the itch she feels for writing. "With anything that you love, you enjoy it, even if it feels like you're giving mental birth," Song said. "I know, there's just this duality between enjoyment and pain." In the past year, Song landed in an online community of young writers that welcomed open conversations on literature and hosted Zoom readings that connected her to students across the world. Having met several writers, Song and her circle busy themselves by editing and reading each other's work. Song replicates this spirit of community and support in her own projects. On her website, she provides a list of resources, including workshops, guides, and pieces that have influenced her own writing, which young writers can use and benefit from. "It's so amazing to have this community of young writers. Everyone is so supportive and encouraging," Song said. "It just feels like a very safe place." California's Jonathan Truong, CC '25, shares Song's focus on community-driven projects. Truong graduated from an arts school in Santa Ana, California with a focus on creative writing. He notes that this experience exposed him to the institutional pressures of writing for external signifiers of success. "[Teen writing programs] all kind of perpetuate this complex where you're rewarded for writing a certain type of way," Truong said. Growing up mixed-race, Truong often felt he had to exploit his identity for predominately white institutions. Now more than ever, he is more mindful of what he chooses to share about his identity, writing for himself rather than for an audience. In response to the lack of digital space for teen writers, Truong co-founded the Hominum Journal, an online literary magazine. Eventually, the publication began to accept work from writers of all ages and backgrounds, with the hopes of making the project more community-driven. "I realized that what teen writers need is not more publication models that rely on traditional means," Truong said. "What they need is more programming." Frustrated with the idea of literature being something so isolated and individualistic—which seemed especially true during the pandemic—Truong looks forward to having literary conversations in person. "I love everything about the sort of spirit of communitarianism. … What really inspires me about literature is this idea of conversation and dialogue," Truong said. Since the start of the pandemic, many students have missed the creative energy and inspiration that comes from in-person collaboration. Now ready to set foot on Columbia's campus for the first time, the class of 2025 will join the revival of the artistic community. Staff writer Fernanda Aguero can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.