Concordia art exhibit uses Instagram to define happiness

 

Katie Pepera inspects a collection of photos hung on a wall. They depict people from all walks of life. Many are eating or laughing around picnic tables. Some are photos of pets and a few of forested landscapes.

 

She singles out one in particular.

 

“That’s my dad on the tractor,” Pepera says.

 

If that sounds like an snapshot from a family album or a standard shot found scrolling through an online photo stream, you’d be half right. That photo of Pepra’s dad hangs in an art gallery, but it came from her Instagram account.

 

Specifically, it’s part of a new, ongoing exhibition at Concordia College’s Cyrus M. Running Gallery that is filling its walls with submitted Instagram photos from audience members. The exhibit, “From a Cup to Instagram: Art and Social Engagement in the 21st Century,” is on display at the gallery through Sept. 22.

 

Pepera is assembling the show along with fellow art history senior Lauren Johnson and Concordia art professor Susan Lee. But the exhibition isn’t a finished thing put on display; it’s more of a participatory experience. The public can have their images added to the wall by tagging Instagram photos with #happycord, and Pepera and Johnson will then print them out and hang them up.

 

The idea came from discussion in Lee’s museum studies about doing something a bit outside the norm, Pepera said.

 

“We really liked the idea of engaging with the viewer and challenging them with the notion of ‘what is art,’ ” Pepera said.

 

Lee added that they wanted to introduce the notion of snapshot photography as a new element of art history.

 

“We wanted to challenge this notion that art is for the few,” Lee said. “With something like this, everyone can participate.”

 

In addition to the photos, the display has an atmosphere created through “happy” songs suggested by audience members, a place to write a word or phrase that evokes happiness, and a place for two people to sit and have a structured conversation about happiness.

 

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