Cultural Dialogue Through Art at Texas Tech International Cultural Center

Cultural Dialogue Through Art at Texas Tech International Cultural Center Niloofar Gholamrezaei I am writing this essay to request a budget and a space for an art curatorial project at the Texas Tech International Cultural Center. The curatorial project will be led by me and some other international students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Texas Tech University (TTU). The project is annual art exhibitions that reflect the art works of international students who study at TTU. I think the exhibitions from the art works of international students at TTU will be a remarkable move for the International Cultural Center, because this project can play an important role in cultural communication among TTU students and the local Lubbock community. Art has been always a powerful tool for communication. Humans started creating painting even before the invention of language. I think communication particularly is powerful when it is accompanied with diversity. In fact, dialogue and exchange of ideas between people who are from different parts of the world, with different perspectives, and backgrounds are the strongest kind of communication. Hence, I think art shows from the art works of international students at TTU is a crucial and remarkable move for the International Cultural Center, TTU community, as well as Lubbock local community. In what follows, I will lay out why and how I think that this project is important for our community in more detail. In a separate essay, I also will explain the structure of our project and how the budget and space will be used. Firstly, I think this project will have unique educational impacts on the TTU and local communities in Lubbock. Considering the fact that Lubbock is an isolated city, TTU’s international students can play a significant role in promoting cultural awareness and diversity within the school and also among local people in Lubbock. International students, who are from all over the world, can share their distinctive perspectives on different themes in their art works. Thus, this art show will create an environment for communication and dialogue that is accompanied with distinct perspectives and voices. Such communication, I think will be very instructive because it helps people who live in an isolated city, to look at different issues from different perspectives. Secondly, this project is imperative because it will promote tolerance toward different cultures, religions, and voices within TTU and the local community. Again, the diverse messages coming from all over the world, within an art show at TTU can create a cultural awareness in which people can acknowledge and appreciate plurality of ideas. The audience can see how people live differently and thus have different ways of thinking about their environment. I think promoting tolerance toward different cultures, is important particularly among the people who live, work, or study in the United States, because in the United States people are from all over the world and live together. In short, I would like to request the supports of TTU, especially the office of the International Cultural Center to help us with developing the project. The project will be annual art exhibitions from the art works of TTU international students in which students from all over the world share their unique perspectives and philosophies with the Lubbock community. I believe this show will be an influential step in promoting cultural awareness and tolerance toward different people with different cultures, religions, etc. Moreover, the show will create a space for learning and education by promoting the understanding of different perspectives toward our environment.