Event 1

The first event I attended was Haytham Nawar’s Collective Bread Diaries: A Taste of Protest. It featured multiple panels of machine drawn images of bread as well as a book that compiled those drawings. The drawings featured different types of bread from numerous different countries. The entire project was a statement on the importance of bread in different cultures and the role it has played in different revolutionary settings throughout history. 

This installment related heavily to this week topic of robotics and art because the drawings were recreated using a machine. The artist repurposed the machine (that was previously used to intricately cut paper) so that it would move a pen meticulously around the paper to accurately recreate the images he received. It was almost mesmerizing to watch the machine, which was in the middle of the room during the exhibit, recreate the drawings so smoothly and precisely before our very eyes.

I would definitely recommend this exhibit to another classmate because it provided me with a new perspective on the importance of bread in different cultures and how it symbolized periods of protest and political turmoil. It was also a unique installment because it was a compilation of drawings done by hundreds of different people from different countries. I thought it was really amazing how Nawar was able to combine all of these different cultural symbols so effortlessly in to one uniform piece of art.