Found Art Project - Watergate

Our group's project focused on the Watergate scandal and those involved. Some of the more famous people included President Nixon, Woodward and Bernstein, John Dean, the "plumbers", and Deep Throat.

Our items included a telephone, wrench, cassette tape, pictures, and quotes. The telephone is used to represent the conversations between Deep Throat (the informant) and Woodward (Washington Post). The phone can also be used for the phone calls done by the president with his staff. The wrench signifies the "plumbers" who broke into the Watergate complex to plant listening devices for spying on the Democratic party. The cassette tape represents the recorded conversations Nixon had in the Oval Office that revealed his part in the scandal, and his vigorous effort to keep them away from the public. Pieces of tape are cut off and strewn over the box we used to show the parts of the tape that were edited out, most likely by President Nixon. The pictures and quotes show people who had a major impact on the scandal or who made lasting remarks about Nixon's actions.

The telephone we used came from my own house (one we weren't using anymore). The wrench also came from my house, while the tape came from Bonan. The pieces of tape placed over the box came from a tape I brought. Both Bonan and I brought pictures, quotes, and articles related to Watergate.

If I were to do this project again, I would have tried to get more color or actual items to put on the box.

Advice I would give to next year's class is to not slack off and choose a topic interesting to that group.

-Andrew Hwang

We are... Aware of Aids

For our Found Art project, my group chose the topic of Aids. We chose this topic because it is an extremely important issue- worldwide, and we wanted to learn a little bit more about it. In America alone, Aids has taken the lives of tens of thousands of people. Our items varied from medical equipment to movies, to informational posters. The medical equipment was used to represent how Aids has become a huge health issue here in America. We used a pill box, a stethoscope, and gloves. One of our informational posters was a poster from the era that targets women telling them not to sleep with a man who shoots up. The poster provides information about how he can give you and your baby aids. We also put red ribbons on our box because the red ribbon, similar to the pink ribbon for breast cancer, is a symbol for the fight against aids. To obtain our items, we looked around the house and used the internet for information and pictures. We also asked our parents for items and information. I think our group did the best we could so I would not do anything differently. We did all our work on time and we found some really great items. Also, I am very happy with how our project turned out. The advice i would give to next years students would be to pick a topic that interests you, and that you know you can find a lot of items and information for. If you pick a topic that bores you, the project wont be very much fun.

By Jennah