SFSU Art students create an extraordinary exhibition exploring the ordinary

SFSU Fine Arts Gallery showcases findings from grant-funded Office for the Study of the Ordinary 

In these extraordinary times, we can learn something by stepping back and exploring the ordinary. At San Francisco State University, about 100 students led by an artist-in-residence have investigated the everyday, creating new works of art in a “fake” department called The Office for the Study of the Ordinary.  

A culminating exhibition in the SFSU Fine Arts Gallery showcases the processes, artifacts and printed material compiled over the past year by 150 overall participants. “Objects of Inquiry: The Office for the Study of the Ordinary” is on display Saturday, Feb. 22 – Saturday, April 5. Admission is free. 

“Bureaucracy and art seemingly wouldn’t mesh. Put them together and something weird comes out,” said Liz Hernández, the Harker Artist-in-Residence at SFSU, a position made possible by the Harker Fund at the San Francisco Foundation. “The ordinary can be extraordinary if you shift your focus.” 

Hernández worked alongside students in their classes for one to two weeks at a time to create collaborative art projects. Supplied with lab coats, magnifying glasses and measuring tape, students strolled the campus and took pictures of their observations. They created ID cards with fictional job titles for themselves: fantastical daydreamer, termite enthusiast, dust collector and so on.

Read the full article on SF State News.