By Phoebe Myers, For The Miami Student
In seventh grade, Kelsy Chesser and a co-conspirator decided to make a horror movie. They stayed up all night filming, traipsing through the woods and scaring themselves. After hours of editing, they had the finished product.
"The Flair Twitch Project."
Nine years later, Kelsy, now an art history major, points to "The Flair Twitch Project" as her favorite piece of art she's ever created.
"It's my magnum opus," she laughs.
Kelsy is far from the stereotype that "art history" connotes. She just spent winter term at a contemporary art collective in Columbus called "M I N T." In a warehouse with a chicken coop out front and a mission to represent unknown artists, M I N T is the new face of accessible art in Ohio.
"I like the stuff that people are still formulating," Kelsy says.
Her house in Oxford, called "The Void," is quickly becoming a space for Kelsy to formulate new ideas and bring part of the art scene from Columbus to Oxford. Recently, she asked her friends to participate in a texture project.
Watched by a sequined tapestry of Jesus and a 2Pac poster, Kelsy gathered the friends who had responded to her Facebook invitation in the Void's living room.
"I was surprised how many people wanted to do it with me, to get their clothes dirty and everything."
The participants were blindfolded, and subjected to having strange substances poured over their bodies. The substances included fake blood, coffee grounds and jasmine tea, among others. Hoping to illicit a visceral reaction, Kelsy photographed the reactions.
"I wanted an excuse, in some ways, to just be strange," she explains. "I also wanted people to get out of their comfort zones and connect with their bodies."
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Textures are only the beginning. Facebook reveals another "strange happening" is coming to the Void this weekend, a vaguely stated collaborative sculpture project.
She ends the post mysteriously, "That's all I can say for now … come over."
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