AWKWARD is an artistic student lifestyle publication I directed during my B.Arch at Cornell University.
2006 — 2009
Each issue uniquely and thematically addressed matters that fictionally or non-fictionally relate to Cornell undergraduate campus life through various sensual means—including but not limited to physical, visual, and literary expressions. Through its inclusion of various and distinctive aspects, styles, and viewpoints, the publication is awkward, diverse.
#6: Tactile
More object than book, this issue transcends the expected format, creating a system of navigation more adapted to the sense it explores: touch. The result is a voyage through the tangible, the unexpected, the awkward. 14 plates, each displaying a text on one side, a texture on the other, constitute 14 tactile experiences addressing various facets of campus life at Cornell. With topics ranging from fashion to the environment, AWKWARD #6 “touches” on a wide variety of subjects.
#7: the event
Borrowing the framework of a conventional fashion show, this issue elaborates on the spectacle of transient art to include culinary, auditory, choreographic, literary and cinematographic pleasures. 14 student-written articles are interpreted as fashion, as tastings and as music, converging into a sophisticated experience shared by 100 people at a time. It is performed on a long wide runway which functions both as a dining table and stages the metaphor for the digestion of the work presented.
#8: Dolls
An artistic installation held on in Palazzo Lazzaroni, right above Cornell’s campus in Rome, Dolls is a performance encompassing fashion, music, and choreography revolving around intertwining narratives. The fabricated and the living collide in an eternal game to copy each other. From this collision arises the ambiguous, the awkward. In a city requiring constant projection of oneself into the imaginary, dolls can become a tool of externalizing not only imagination, but feelings, desires, obsessions, and fears.
#9: Purse
Through the objectification of the publication —a lost purse— a voyeuristic experience emerges as the reader is exposed to a collection of elements (letters, diaries, sketchbook, Polaroids) revolving around the life of a fictitious Cornell student. Each item is understood in relation to the others within the framework of a real life experience: finding a strangers purse. The Purse was on display at Cornell University's Fine Arts Library from September 8th through October 8th, 2009.
#10: Circus
From ancient times, circuses have been the asylum of the bizarre, the extraordinary, the grotesque, the comical. It is the refuge under which the unexpected becomes socially acceptable. This circus is such an asylum, exposing the hidden talents of the Cornell community. At this event, meaning dissolves and it’s constituent parts reassemble, a bit like a phoenix, except it turns into a duck, unfettered by cultural meaning or social repercussions.
AWKWARD T-shirt
Our limited edition t-shirt featured a detachable tail that turned into a scarf, and was for sale at the Cornell Store. It acted as a promotion for AWKWARD Tactile, a fundraiser for the Circus, and was an essential part of the wardrobe of the artistic community at Cornell.