artist statement

The Key to SIUE functions on several different levels as a meditative tool, as a process-based art therapy technique, and as significant challenge to the University culture.  The design of our sculpture references the labyrinth, a circular form with pathways that guide a mover towards the center.  In ancient Western literary accounts like the Cretan Labyrinth with the Minotaur, the term signified a confusing situation recreated by the maze-like pathways of half of our sculpture.  However, in depictions and in its Eastern roots, the labyrinth was not a place where one gets lost, but rather a guiding path toward the center and an encounter with self and insight.  This symbolic geometry of our design offers the viewer a space to contemplate these and other dichotomies. 

The process of building The Key to SIUE was particularly important an art therapy technique.  As graduate students in the Art Therapy program, the sculpture offered a way for us to explore our cultures of origin—Indonesia and America—as well as our artistic trainings—formal and informal—and ways of approaching the world—right- and left-brained.  We each chose simple materials with which we were most comfortable and also represented our struggles between, as Corita Kent writes in Learning by Heart, the Eastern “task of the maker to project the chosen theme in the best possible way—not, as in the West, to project a personal viewpoint or message.” 

Ultimately, our sculpture stands as a challenge to all students, faculty, and staff at SIUE.  By creating this mini-replica of the campus map at the main entrance, we call attention to architect, Gyo Obata’s original design for the campus to reflect the natural beauty of the land and offer many chances to appreciate the landscape.  However, in the hurry of university-life, the winding pathways at SIUE are often a source of frustration for many students.  The Key to SIUE sculpture reminds every person to appreciate the journey of education and life.