If we asked you, “What do you need right now, to be able to rest?”, what might you say?
Rest Lab, a creative, experimental pop-up space that invites resting with intention, came to the Graduate College office on Green St for a few weeks in April this year. Co-created by Krannert Art Museum’s Education Coordinators Ishita Dharap and Kamila Glowacki, Rest Lab has occupied various galleries of Krannert Art Museum (KAM) to consider what resting means, and what it can look like. This is the first time Rest Lab has stepped out of its home in the Krannert Art Museum and into the campus community with the Graduate College as its host and co-conspirator. This semester’s Rest Lab focused on the idea of connection as rest. We sought to generate ways for people across campus, but also across time, to connect with each other, hear what each other needed, and respond to those needs, a way to reinforce the reality that we are not alone.
The large windows of the Graduate College lend the space a beautiful and bright permeability; you can look into rooms of the building, and you can look out at the bustle of Green Street, the reflections of buildings on other glass windows, the clouds, the sky. Rest Lab: In Search of Rest took advantage of this permeability and used the transparency of the windows as a place to exchange requests and responses, acknowledging our reality of always being in search of rest. The windows initially became a place for participants to briefly answer the question “What do you need right now?” and post it on the windows on brightly colored paper so as to be visible to pedestrians.
Resting isn’t something everyone even knows they might need. Asking students and other passers-by on Green Street in the heart of Campustown what they needed right now to be able to rest yielded a variety of responses, from long-term and large-scale needs like finding a job or achieving academic success, to more immediate concerns, like having enough quarters for the laundromat or the search for the perfect orange chicken. While people out on Green Street had quickly walked by the window before we started putting up these requests, they now lingered, reading each others’ vulnerable words about needing to rest– a literal and metaphorical interruption of their busy day. Inside, the room was made cozy with soft furniture, blankets, pillows, snacks, and coffee.
After a few days of people adding their requests to the window, we gathered them and brought them to the Krannert Art Museum, where the Restful Offerings program invited participants to pick a request or two and respond to it in whatever way they liked. This activity was set up in Jen Everett’s solo exhibition Could You Dim The Lights? that anchors practices of seeking, archiving, togetherness, and sustained connections with spaces and each other.
One question was on our minds as we arranged collage materials and tubs of scissors, tape, glue, and colored pencils on a large table at the Krannert Art Museum– How was someone supposed to respond to the larger questions about internships, success, anxiety, life? Our worry was short-lived; in the course of the evening’s program, participants came up with colorful collages, poetry, recipes, and recommendations in response to the requests left on the window, a delightful blend of practical and poetic. As they described later, working with someone else’s request was in itself a restful experience. It also felt special to be giving someone an interpretation of what they had expressed they needed.
The collection of fulfilled requests– brightly colored sheets of needs and artistic responses– hangs yet again in the large window facing Green Street, the window now also a gallery full of artwork.
Each Rest Lab is different, and it usually takes the shape of its container. Maintaining its elasticity helps us uncover new ways of resting. Previous Rest Labs have played with restful creative prompts, collaborative making, watching and listening to moving water, checking in with yourself, moving to music, and externalizing difficult thoughts for a cathartic experience. We are always eager to see where Rest Lab leads us next.
Ishita Dharap is an artist and art educator. Her cyclical teaching and art-making practice excavates personal and communal discomfort through a rigorous practice of reflection and play. Her work has manifested in drawing, collage, time-based media, performance, sculpture, and installation. She received a Master’s in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020 during a global pandemic. She is currently a doctoral student in the Art Education program at UIUC and an Education Coordinator at the Krannert Art Museum.
Kamila Glowacki is a musician, artist, and museum educator based in Champaign, Illinois. She holds a Master of Arts in Art Education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is the Education Coordinator at Krannert Art Museum (KAM). Kamila has been a museum educator at KAM for nine years, designing and leading tours and programs for audiences spanning Pre-K through senior adults. Her experience as a musician and visual artist in the Central Illinois DIY/punk music scene is at the core of her work in museum education and community engagement.
