‘My Body, My Rights’ exhibit allows USD students freedom to create

Many of the new colorful images and unique writings that now adorn the walls on the second floor of the I.D. Weeks Library do more than please the eye.

This collection of work is part of a new art exhibition curated by USD’s Amnesty International. It features different mediums of art created by students based off of the ‘My Body, My Rights’ campaign. The exhibit will be featured in the library until May 2.

Students were allowed to submit two works, either writing or visual art, to interpret the phrase ‘My Body, My Rights’ any way they wanted to.

“Lots of people took it different ways, as a lot of students are engaged in different disciplines that discuss gender, sexuality, feminism and intersexuality,” said Rebecca Froehlich, a junior studio arts major who’s featured in the exhibit. “So people are making different arts with different themes that go along with the topic ‘My Body, My Rights.’”

The original campaign, created by Amnesty International USA, focuses on different ways that men and women are unable to make decisions about their own health, body, sexuality and reproductive life. The campaign aims to prove that people should have a right to make choices regarding their bodies.

Froehlich said she personally had many ideas on what to create regarding the topic.

“I ended up submitting two works on topics of consequences of limiting access to safe abortions,” Froehlich said. “I used mixed media on canvas displaying everyday items that have been used for at home abortions.”

Senior Marci Smith, an art education major, also submitted work to the exhibition but interpreted the topic in a different way.

“I submitted two large canvas pieces that used multimedia colored pencils and oil paint with charcoal,” she said. “I used these old paper dolls I found, along with envelopes I found the dolls in, and blew up the images on canvas to see how it changed the original images.”

Students had no artistic limitations when it came to submitting
their work.

“I want people to take away that everyone has a different way of expressing themselves, and every different way is important,” Smith said.“I’m really proud to have my work on campus knowing that someone sitting there doing homework can look up at my work, or someone else’s work, and start thinking about how the themes relate to them personally.”