Brian Trimble, the interim director at the University Arts Museum began Wednesday’s exhibit talk about the Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation (TBMG) installation, by describing the definition of millennials to an audience of millennials.
A student-work based exhibit, TBMG was a discussion inspired by another exhibit in the museum – Barbara Klemm’s “Light and Dark: Photographs from Germany.”
“‘Millennials’ is a term to refer to people born in the ‘80s and the ‘90s brought up using technology and mass media,” Trimble said. “Often referred to as the ‘Me’ Generation.”
The discussion challenged students of Dr. Beth Manke’s human development class, most of whom are part of the millennial generation. Students were asked to define their generation through a photograph, and then write a 100-word interpretation of why his or her photograph represented the millennials.
The exhibit began as an idea stemming from a previous project in the museum in 2012 and 2013 called “I am UAM,” in which the goal was to determine how the museum could engage a specific audience: the students on campus.
“We surveyed over 1,200 students on campus to find out how they interacted with the arts … we asked students to define their generation in one word,” Trimble said. “We started thinking, ‘What else do we want to find out?’”
According to the data collected by the survey, over 200 students gave a response that had to with technology.
TBMG was created to deepen the interpretation of millennials in order to instead focus on how the generation defines itself.
Brendan Wolf, an environmental science and policy major and student in Dr. Manke’s class, was one of a select few students to have their photograph displayed in the museum.
“I was excited to participate because I like taking pictures as a hobby,” Wolf said. “I thought I could do a good job in creating a picture that could contribute to the project.”
Wolf’s photo depicts a drug scene, but instead of illicit substances, the drug portrayed is coffee. Many of the other photographs pictured include some sort of technology.
“I was surprised with the variety of the pictures that were submitted. I expected most of them to be about technology and be cynical,” Brendan said. “What I found was that a lot of them found happiness and hope in something a lot of people view as negative.”
One piece included in the description that the millennials are “a generation that is constantly labeled, but has yet to be defined.”
“I found that interesting, because it didn’t take a stance, negative or positive, it was [like] we [are] still trying to figure it out,” Wolf said.
Dr. Manke said that the purpose of this project was not solely to look at the photograph and interpretation. Manke hopes that that previous generations will be able to take away more understanding of the millennial generation.
“For previous generations, it’s getting a better insight into the ways in which millennials think of themselves,” Manke said. “And maybe into some contradictions of the generation, [like] how I can be a leader and a follower at the same time.”
The exhibit will run in the UAM until Dec. 14, 2014.