OSCA Reopens, Hoping to Pre serve Instiutional Memory

ARTS & CULTURE

October 8, 2021 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 1

OSCA Reopens, Hoping to Preserve Institutional Memory

Lilyanna D’Amato Arts & Culture Editor

After temporarily closing its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association has resumed its housing and dining operations. OSCA is a student-owned and run nonprofit organization that offers housing and dining services to almost a quarter of students on campus. While new OSCAns are being inducted into the co-op experience, veterans are taking on the responsibility of preserving the nonprofit’s traditions and institutional memory.

While the organization is a separate entity from the College, OSCA was completely shut down in March 2020, and many of its housing and dining facilities were repurposed by Residential Education and Campus Dining Services. At the time, many students felt that the halt on all OSCA-related activities jeopardized its significant presence on campus.

“Over COVID[-19], it felt like OSCA went completely silent, which makes complete sense because it was a global pandemic,” College fourth-year Izzy Halloran said. “But what I have been thinking about is how the first- and second-years may not be aware of the traditions, qualities, and characteristics of each co-op. It is a bit sad to think that those things will leave with the upperclassmen.”

In the months before COVID-19 took hold in the United States, Halloran had been acting as head cook and serving as the missed-jobs coordinator at the Kosher-Halal Co-op, which is not under OSCA’s umbrella but followed the same structure. KHC was recently closed permanently following an executive decision by the college.

“I’ve been waiting for the return of OSCA ever since it closed,” Halloran said. “I’m dining at Tank [Hall] this year, which is very exciting for me because, as someone who does not eat meat or fish, I had a difficult time finding sources of protein during the spring and summer semesters.”

For Halloran, an OSCA member since 2018, the co-op experience provides an intimate, close-knit community, and it has given her a new set of skills she feels will inform the rest of her life.

“OSCA has also helped me and countless others find a more cost-effective dining plan, one that offers us increased agency over our food,” she said. To be able to know where our food comes from, to cook it ourselves, and to serve it to each other is an invaluable experience.”

The idea of preserving the organization’s institutional memory seems to be on everyone’s minds as OSCA reopens its doors to residents and diners.

“Preserving co-op traditions is the most important thing [to them] right now. In discussions and in house meetings, it seems like people are really dedicated to maintaining Hark[ness House]’s personality for the new members,” Harkness Housing Loose Ends Coordinator and College fourth-year Tal Clower said. “Recently, we were voting on the shower policy, because Harkness used to have group showers and when the pandemic happened ResEd put in dividers. A couple of the people who have never been in OSCA before were saying that it felt a little bit uncomfortable but that we should take them down in the interest of maintaining the co-op’s rituals.”

Tasked with preserving OSCA’s institutional memory, many co-ops, including Harkness and Tank, have created historian positions. Responsibilities include recording, collecting, and presenting co-op histories in hopes of rebuilding the broader OSCA community and identity. Along with OSCA’s overarching historian — a position that remains to be filled — the co-op historians will document newsworthy events, take pictures and record oral histories, write

of their monetary nightmares; if they lose they are eliminated. The driving force in the show is money, and its capacity to corrupt and isolate. Even the characters whose drives towards wealth are underlined with good intentions ultimately find tha no amount of money can compensate for the ultimate price: their life. Though many of the show’s characters strive toward financial security through desperate means, the point is not to vilify the mechanisms of poverty; instead, the show holds a mirror to the underbelly of capitalism, serving to expose the determinants of economic inequality on the collective good of society.

As the set changes from city to a fantastical and nightmarish life-sized arcade game, it’s hard to deny that Squid Game is beautifully shot, written, and acted. The vibrant colors and cheerful music contrast the dark, disturbing backdrop of the games, creating a jarring eeriness. Just as the game begins, an unsettling feeling unfurls around the characters — a chill so tangible it strikes the viewer like a sudden winter gale. A haunting array of villains — either the faceless henchmen, the fatal rules of the games, or the unknown Front Man — undo and disembowel character after character, enthralling the viewer with a compelling cocktail of dread and anticipation.

The show follows six main characters, each written with significant yet relatable flaws. Set during a dystopian present day, the world created in the show doesn’t feel too far off from our current reality, ushering viewers towards the uneasy realization that Squid Game’s universe isn’t too dissimilar from their own.

As you try to figure out the rules of the next game or which character will crack under the mounting pressure, the show becomes increasingly addictive; it is nearly impossible to look away. Even when your predictions are proven false and tossed aside, you want to keep guessing anyway.

The show’s quickfire tension compounds with the viewer’s bird’s-eye view over the deadly antics, and one begins to feel like they themselves are an alternative gamemaster as they beg the characters to follow their directions, to stay still when they need to stay still, and to run when they need to run. As soon as these pleas materialize in the brain, the answer comes, often in a fit of blood and despair so sudden it feels like an electric shock. As the show progresses, it becomes increasingly clear who will survive and who will not but that does not make watching the process any easier. In the sixth episode in particular, there are many heart-wrenching goodbyes and tough decisions. This is when even the most morally upright charSee Squid Game, page 12

See OSCA, page 11 Above: Located just east of campus, Tank returns to co-op life in full swing. Photo by Kush Bulmer, News Editor

Below: College fourth-years Katie Kunka and Noah Plotkin study on the sunny lawn of the newly reopened Hark co-op. Photo by Anisa Curry Vietze, Editor-in-Chief

The Fantastic Nightmare of Netflix’s Squid Game

Michael Eddy Harvey

Squid Game, written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, has been breaking streaming records across the country since its September release. In nine tense and exhilarating episodes, the show builds upon the popular dystopian genre as it follows a game designed to offer 456 debt-ridden people a chance to change their fortune. The show gives a nuanced view on what we would do in a kill-or-bekilled situation. While there have been movies similar to Squid Game such as The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, none have ever gone in quite the same direction.

The participants have to play some simple games — such as red light, green light and tug of war — each with more dramatic and deadly twists than the last. If they win, they move on to the next round one step closer to an enormous cash prize and a way out

AMAM, Student Leaders Host Shared Art Program to Welcome First-Years

Jenny Rowlett

New Student Orientation introduced a Shared Art element into its programming this fall, with the hopes of continuing the project in future years. The goal of the new initiative is to give incoming students an opportunity to engage with the Allen Memorial Art Museum, participate in meaningful conversations related to a specific art piece, build community, and demonstrate the ways in which Oberlin can help students develop their artistic literacy.

The program was designed and organized by the AMAM’s Assistant Curator of Academic Programs Hannah Wirta Kinney, former Assistant Vice President of Student Life Adrian Bautista, and eight College students. The student committee, consisting of individuals from an array of backgrounds and disciplines across the College, worked collaboratively with the Peer Advising Leaders program.

The Shared Arts programming was centered around one selected piece, “Grandma Ruby’s Refrigerator,” a photograph from a larger series by LaToya Ruby Frazier. The program organizers opted to focus on a single work, rather than considering themes across a whole exhibition, in the hope of encouraging students to digest the work through their own contextual lenses, instead of relying on comparison.

Frazier’s photography seeks to elevate and humanize disenfranchised communities by depicting subjects with grace and empathy. Her images are loaded with personal and sociocultural insight, but it took her several years to find her voice. Kinney hopes that Frazier’s artwork will remind incoming students that it takes time to find who you want to be.

“The act of finding your voice and your impact isn’t immediate,” Kinney said. “I think sometimes when you’re a college student, and you’re thinking on a semester basis, that’s hard to realize … but actually this whole thing is an evolution, a change, a growth, and a discovery.”

In the process of selecting Frazier’s work, the students on the committee discussed their experiences with the AMAM, their own identities, and the conversations they hoped the artwork would spark. These discussions bore a common theme: the students felt that many of their peers were not aware of all that the AMAM has to offer. Collegefourth-year Luci Williams, an Art History and Russian major on the committee, reflected on what she hoped incoming students would gain from Shared Art.

“I hope that they don’t just view the [AMAM] as where you go for class and constantly have this association between the museum and some assignment,” she said. “Instead, everyone can sort of find their own piece and peace.”

The first sessions of Shared Art occurred during Orientation. They consisted of a Shared Art Block Party and a session for students to discuss the art with their PAL group. During the Block Party on Thursday, Sept. 30, students had time to view the selected piece, talk with AMAM staff, socialize with other incoming students, and participate in activities related to the art piece.

After viewing the art ahead of time, incoming students met with their PAL groups to further discuss what they had seen. In these discussions, students reflected on what they noticed in Frazier’s piece and any feelings the work evoked. The goal of the small group discussions was not only to introduce the topic of identity, but also to closely examine how Frazier uses her photographs to highlight societal problems and inspire social change.

College fourth-year PAL and committee member Mikala Jones thought the conversations with her PAL group went well.

“I feel like whenever you have the conversation [about a piece of art] — ‘What do you notice and what do you see?’ — there’s always new things that come up,” she said. “I felt like new students in my group brought up some really cool things I hadn’t thought about, even though I’d looked at the work a few times before.”

Although the art piece at the center of the Shared Art program will change each year, this year’s photograph will remain on display at the AMAM. Kinney hopes that members of the class of 2025 will continue to revisit Frazier’s “Grandma Ruby’s Refrigerator” and see the photo in a different light.

OSCA Welcomes Back New and Old Members

Continued from page 10

articles, and lead historical discussions as OSCA reintegrates itself into daily campus life.

“Most of the residents of Keep Cottage have never been in a co-op before,” HLEC Beaux Watwood said. “So I think finding our own way right now is both a burden and full of tons of excitement and the potential to be creative. It’s so fun to meet all of my first-years and get them excited about having the autonomy to make our own decisions.”

Still, the road ahead is not entirely smooth.

“I think we’re all struggling with the reopening,” Watwood said. “We don’t really know what the status quo is, and now that a lot of the students who were in OSCA before the pandemic have graduated, it has been really difficult because we have to be creative about questions like, ‘How do we do things? How do we remember how other people did things before? What does OSCA look like following [COVID-19]?’”

While OSCA undergoes a time of change and renewal, returning members agree on the importance of its vitality.

“I’ve been in OSCA every semester of college, except for COVID[-19],” Clower said. “I had never even been away to sleepaway camp before, so when I got here for Orientation and was eating in [Stevenson Dining Hall], that was the most stressful part of my day. There were so many people, and I didn’t know what to do. I felt so overwhelmed. When I first got to OSCA, I remember I would be sitting in the lounge doing homework, feeling kind of lonely or down, and someone would walk in and just strike up a conversation. It’s so important that we make first- and second-years aware of OSCA because it gives people a sense of place — a special community that makes you feel like you belong.”