2013 IAP MLK Seminar

MIT Martin Luther King Jr. Design Seminar (17.920) exhibition

Lobby 10 installations from the Martin Luther King Jr. Design Seminar (17.920) class, held during IAP and concluded conclude on Feb. 14, 2013. The class focused on topics such as civil rights, race, and identity. Read student reflection papers.

Annual MLK exhibits opens

Bruno B. F. Faviero, The Tech, 5 Feb 2013

Tonight marks the opening of the Lobby 10 installation from the Martin Luther King Jr. Design Seminar (17.920), an IAP course where students learned about the Civil Rights Movement and discussed topics like race and identity. The installation will be up until the night of Jan. 14.

The course culminates with display installations made by the students, which this year will tentatively include a map of global issues, a tribute to the black panther party, and a large collage of people from civil rights leaders to MIT students. Many of the installations are interactive in some way, including a jukebox with freedom songs from the 1950s.

Megan E. Bumgarner ’14 worked on a group installation, which consists of two chairs: a “weaker,” divided black and white chair, and a sturdier, checkered chair, which shows “integration as being more stable.”

The class’s instructor, Undergraduate Administrator Tobie Weiner, said that the number of students enrolled in the class has increased every year, and even includes 10 Wellesley students, who made an installation for their campus.

Weiner worries the exhibit might be vandalized as in the past. “I used to think about [vandalism] when we had really controversial things,” said Weiner, “but oddly it seems like the stupidest things are vandalized.” In past years, vandals have switched an Abraham Lincoln cutout with one of Steve Irwin and removed an entire display about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Weiner said she doesn’t know if there will be cameras again this year to guard the exhibit as there have been in some years.