In House Art Festival Keeps Creativity and Collaboration Alive
When classes at Carnegie Mellon University were moved to remote teaching because of the COVID-19 pandemic, junior School of Drama students Rachel Kolb and Adira Rosen felt a sense of loss right away. But they came up with a novel idea to keep collaboration going among fellow students. They developed the In House Art Festival to helps others share their creativity. The festival premieres Saturday, April 11. Full details are on the website.
“I came up with the idea the day after classes were canceled because I felt like I lost my collaborative space in the School of Drama,” said Kolb, a sound design major. “I wanted to create a space in this new reality that could act like a facilitator for collaboration and community, and serve as a library for work created during this time.”
She texted Rosen with an elevator pitch for the idea, asking for her opinion. Rosen came back with some logo designs (in black and gold, a nod to their Pittsburgh “artistic home”), and their work began in earnest. Working together via texts and phone calls, they built the site and graphics. Their last step was setting up social media accounts to spread the word.
“Innovation, community and collaboration are major components of our education and artistic development at CMU,” Rosen said. “We created In House Art Festival in a hope to keep these components alive even as our lives shift.”
Both originally from San Diego (they didn’t know each other until they met at CMU), Rosen returned to Pittsburgh from a semester studying in New York City after Broadway shut down.
“I am lucky to have a house that is safe and warm, with three wonderful roommates and our cat. Our house has turned into both home and school,” Rosen said. “Our teachers are really going above and beyond to make the most of the situation and ensure that the learning doesn’t stop.”
Kolb, too, has decided to stay in Pittsburgh during the isolation period. “Pittsburgh is my new home. Not physically going to school and seeing friends and colleagues has been a little rough, but I am filling my time with projects and taking this time to be as creative as possible.”
They hope that the online festival will help people to continue to collaborate – to take this time “not as a hard stop, but [as a] new challenge to create new and different work.”
Rosen and Kolb said they hope to continue to get submissions long after the April 11 event.
“Motivation to create and stay productive is hard to come by. People are dealing with a lot right now, so to expect creative output in any quantity is unreasonable,” Rosen said. “In House is a vessel that is waiting for people when they are ready.”
