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There are Miami University students currently living in an area that the media portrays as a war zone.
The program, called the Over-the-Rhine Residency Program, has created an exhibit to portray these experiences through previous and current students.
The exhibit is located in the Cage Gallery (or "the cage"), which opened at 4 p.m. Wednesday and will remain open through Nov. 30 in Alumni Hall, and is far from typical.
"It's a journey of pieces from each person's experience and what he or she got out of it," explained senior Brittany Drapac, a previous residency participant.
Nothing hangs on the walls and there are no paintings displayed. Instead, boards with graffiti on one side and posters showcasing each student's experience on the other side hang from the ceiling.
The residency program is in its second year and 23 students have participated. They live in apartments near Washington Park in Cincinnati and take classes taught by Miami professors.
Architecture and interior design professor Tom Dutton, director of the program, emphasized that although the classes are important, it is the experience and the change within the students that is emphasized in the program, as well as the showcase.
"The exhibit is about the transformation in the students, how their value systems were tested and how they dealt with those questions," Dutton said.
The digitally created posters contain pictures of the neighborhood and the participants, as well as journal entries and poems. The image created is drastically different than the picture the statistics and media reports create.
Over-the-Rhine has a population of little more than 7,500 with an average household income of less than $10,000.
From January to September 2007, Over-the-Rhine led Cincinnati neighborhoods in crime ratings according to the City of Cincinnati Police Department.
Dutton wanted the exhibit to showcase the changes the students experienced and how they questioned what they thought they knew about the area.
"I realized that news reports and other information about the neighborhood were either inaccurate altogether or exaggerated," the poster by senior Shawn Thomas reads.
Other exhibitions emphasize the difference that the Over-the-Rhine students experienced and the one the media shows.
"It is one of the most real places (I) have ever been … People see this place as a slummy neighborhood with guns and drugs," junior Marisa Rendina says in her journal entry. "I see it as a metropolis full of life and love."
Located in a small area with an especially crowded feeling and surrounded by wooden boards, the only open space is by several cloth flowers in glass 40-ounce malt liquor bottles filled with tea. The smell of spray paint lingers in the air.
On the far side of the exhibit is a wall covered in wallpaper, which participants are encouraged to rip down. According to Drapac, the tearing of the wallpaper has literal, figurative and symbolic meaning.
The wallpaper, she said, literally represents the renovations done to housing in Over-the-Rhine and the striping of the walls. Figuratively, it shows how the views of the neighborhood were torn down within the students' perceptions. Symbolically, it portrays how the media's portrayal of the area needs to be stripped clean and redone.
Students milling around read each poster and seemed to enjoy the eclectic nature of the gallery.
"The exhibit really seems to capture the feel of the experience these students had," said senior Krista Van Wassen. "This is definitely one of the better exhibits that have been in the cage."
The diverse opinions shown in the gallery can be summed up by one statement in Chris DeLuca's poster: "I know what needs to be done and I have no problem doing it."
Applications for the fall 2008 program are still being accepted. Any interested student should contact Tom Dutton at duttonta@muohio.edu.
