matchup with Notre Dame

Tickets, pg. 3 revised schedule means Pitt won’t play the Hurricanes until two weeks later. Gaughan if they say 50%, I’m good, if they say 75%, I’m good, if they say 100%, I’m good,” Rogers said. “And I think different people will opt in or opt out at each one of those levels at this point until we can confirm that everything’s OK. But I’m OK with whatever they decide.” Marshall said his decision to attend or not attend games this year would depend on the status of the virus in Pittsburgh at the time. Like Rogers, he said he’d be happy to comply with all precautions the University might request to make the games safer, from reduced capacities to wearing masks. “I’m 68 years old, I’ve got a couple of underlying conditions, which makes it kind of tough for me,” Marshall said. “I wanna go, I wanna see Pitt play in person, but once we get this COVID thing under control I think it might be more of a plan than it is right now.” Panther season-ticket holders now have three options for their payments — “re-invest” as a donation to the Panther Club, roll over to the 2021 season or request a refund. Gaughan, Rogers and Marshall all plan to roll over their purchases to the 2021 season. While Pitt has prohibited fan attendance in September, many ACC schools have announced plans to hold upward of 10,000 fans per game this year. With uncertainty surrounding the future of Pitt’s home games, several fans are exploring the possibility of traveling to see the Panthers play in one of these road venues. Although Gaughan had made plans long ago to see the Panthers play Miami in Hard Rock Stadium on Oct. 3, the ACC’s Pitt announced it won’t have any spectators in the stands for at least the first three games of the season, in compliance with Pennsylvania’s health guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. TPN File Pho o doesn’t plan on making the trip anymore. “For obvious reasons I cancelled it,” Gaughan said. “I’m cancelling my travels for this year.” With traveling, tailgating, spectating and celebrating, a college football game day can often be a full-day experience. Without access to all of those activities at Heinz Field for now, fans have already begun to plan how they’ll make Saturdays feel special from home. “We’ll probably tailgate in my driveway or one of my buddy’s driveways,” Gaughan said. “My buddy has a big-screen TV, so we’ll probably just tailgate and watch the game on his back porch.” Although the stadium experience will be missed, Rogers still plans to come to Pittsburgh to cheer on the team with his daughter. “We’d probably go less up to Pittsburgh and she may come here, but we’re definitely college football fans, so we’re going to watch games if they’re on,” he said. “I don’t think we’d necessarily have six meetings to watch it on TV altogether, but it would be fun to create a couple of those to do something like that.”

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‘THEY KILL US HERE’: SURVIVOR OF UYGHUR CONCENTRATION CAMPS RECOUNTS TORTURE

Anushay Chaudhry

Staff Writer

Mihrigul Tursun tearfully recalled on Tuesday the torture she suffered in the Uyghur Muslim concentration camps in Xinjiang, China.

“I asked why I was in prison. I asked why I was tortured,” Tursun said. “What did I do wrong?”

Tursun shared her story during a virtual event hosted by Pitt’s centers for Governance and Markets and Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, as well as the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh and Congregation Beth Shalom. The organizations held the event to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims in China.

The Chinese government has detained at least 800,000 and possibly more than 2 million Uyghurs in “reeducation centers,” marking the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II, according to The Guardian. In the camps, Uyghurs are forced to undergo psychological indoctrination programs as well as physical torture, including waterboarding and sexual abuse.

Tursun was born in East Turkistan, also known as Xinjiang, in 1989. She studied in a Chinese school, before moving to Egypt, where she married and gave birth to triplets. Tursun said she returned back to China so her parents could meet her children. But when she arrived at the airport, Tursun said the Chinese police separated her from her children, handcuffed her, put a black sack over her head and questioned her for three hours before taking her to a prison.

“I didn’t know what was happening to my kids,” Tursun said. “They were only 45 days old. They needed to be fed. My kids need me.”

Tursun said she was notified that her children were in the hospital a few days after being taken to a camp. When she arrived at the hospital, she said a doctor told her that all three of her children had an operation on their necks, but prevented her from seeing them.

“You cannot see them, they told me. I was blacklisted and just came from prison,” Tursun said. “I am not important.”

Tursun said the police gave her the dead body of her oldest son the next day. Tursun believes he was dead for at least three days before she was released from the camp to visit the hospital.

Tursun added that she was then immediately detained by police and taken to a camp for the second time. This time she was questioned by the police, tortured, subjected to electric shock and physically abused for three days.

“While being tortured, I muttered, ‘Oh Allah,’ accidentally, which means ‘help me God,’” Tursun said. “They told me the Chinese Communist Party had more power than Allah. They told me Allah could not save me.”

Tursun also talked about the everyday indecencies of the camp. She remembered a white pill she was forced to take every two hours that made her feel numb. The Chinese police only allowed her to drink water after she took the pill, though.

She also recounted the room she slept in with 68 other women, which she said was so small the women had to take turns sleeping. Tursun said her feet were tied and her hands were handTursun said. “This is not a detention camp. They kill us here.”

She added that she saw many familiar faces in the camp.

“Someone is my doctor, someone is my neighbor, someone was a high school teacher,” Tursun said. “I know these people. They are not bad.”

Nury Turkel, the commissioner of the U.S. Commision on International Religious Freedom and co-founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, agreed. Turkel — who escaped a camp with his mother in 1995 — said while the Chinese government claims it’s fighting against terrorism, those imprisoned are not criminals.

Pitt’s centers for Governance and Markets and Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, as well as the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh and Congregation Beth Shalom, all collaborated to host a virtual event Tuesday to raise awareness about the geneocide of Uyghur Muslims in China.

Zoom screenshot

cuffed to her feet while she slept, which still af“Half a million Uyghur Muslim children fects her today. have been taken away or separated from their

“Even now my back, wrists and feet are in parents,” Turkel said. “Fathers looking for their pain,” Tursun said. “Even now, I cannot sleep kids recognize their faces on Chinese state-run normally. I feel as if I might die.” propaganda material.”

Tursun said witnessing death and torture Turkel said the accounts of torture by surviwas not uncommon in the camps. According to vors like Tursun are clear evidence of genocide. Tursun, in the three months she was in a camp, “There’s been an 80% decrease in Uyghur she saw nine women die. She said she met one population growth in three years,” Turkel said. woman who was imprisoned for 19 months. “Something horrific is happening.”

“They didn’t let her go out to see the sun Tursun said she was eventually allowed to once. They didn’t let her shower for over a year,” return home, but was constantly watched by two September 2,2020

Chinese police officers. They lived, slept and ate with her and her family. Tursun said the police told her that if she told her parents about the torture, they would be subjected to the same treatment.

“My father said, ‘I remember your hair used to be beautiful,’” Tursun said. “I did not know how to tell him why I did not have hair. They took my hair.”

After she visited her parents, Tursun was then taken to prison for a third time where she was threatened with life in prison. She said she begged for her young kids to be sent to Egypt and was released to travel with them. But the Chinese government forced her to sign an agreement and film a video saying that she was not tortured in the camps.

“If I said anything, they would show my video,” Tursun said. “No one will believe you, they told me.”

Tursun eventually sought asylum in the United States, where she lives now. Tursun said her family was forced to denounce her publicly after she left China, so she hasn’t seen or heard from them in years.

Tursun said remembering these details are difficult, causing her to tear up for most of the event.

“It is not easy to talk about what happened to me,” Tursun said. “Each time I talk about this I remember this time. I have lost everything.”

While these camps are located thousands of miles away, Jennifer Murtazashvili, the director of the Center for Governance and Markets, said Pitt administrators can help by sponsoring similar events.

“We had hoped for greater support within the University community for this event, especially considering the many University conversations we’ve had in recent months about diversity and how state power can be used unjustly against minority communities,” Murtazashvili said. “Some administrators were silent when asked for co-sponsorship, while others felt that it was too sensitive a topic.”

Turkel said the best thing students can do to show their solidarity with Uyghur Muslims is contact their representatives and urge them to support the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would prohibit certain imports from Xinjiang, where the concentration camps are located. It would also impose sanctions on the people responsible for the human rights violations.

“If this doesn’t move you to take an action,” Turkel said, “I don’t know what will.”

‘CHRONIC STRESS’: COUNSELING CENTER, STUDENTS ADJUST TO VIRTUAL MENTAL HEALTH CARE

Vaibhav Gupta

Staff Writer

For Kama Sharma, a junior neuroscience, psychology and French triple major, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a number of new struggles to maintaining good mental health. She said one of the biggest is helping someone through a mental health crisis with no face-to-face contact.

“Conversations about mental health are hard to have over Zoom,” Sharma said. “Finding ways to support another person when you do not have those resources available in person is the hard part.”

With the onset of the pandemic and resulting social distancing protocols, mental health has become a major point of concern for Americans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fear and anxiety about the pandemic can be “overwhelming,” and social distancing can make people feel isolated and lonely.

The traditional dynamics of a college semester have also changed as classes and clubs either meet online or social distance. There will be no in-person classes at Pitt until at least Sept. 14, and the University has implemented strict health and safety guidelines surrounding social distancing.

The pandemic has also worsened Sharma’s personal anxiety. Sharma — the president of Active Minds, a club with a focus on promoting conversations around mental health on campus — said the current climate leads to stress.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty about when COVID or social distancing are going to end,” Sharma said. “A lot of that has been causing what our ex-president has called chronic stress. It’s not acute stress but chronic stress, which is a constant state of discontentment and stress in general.”

Sharma added that the current situation is causing people who would not experience symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress to experience them to an extent. She did note that people are now better able to comprehend the importance of mental health services and empathize more with individuals experiencing mental health problems.

“It’s bringing people to the realization of what mental health is and how to take care of yourself,” Sharma said, “because even someone who might not have depression might be experiencing isolation, which is a symptom of depression.”

The University Counseling Center is open and accepting students experiencing mental health challenges, according to Jay Darr, the center’s director. Some of the services available for students include virtual or telemental health services, such as workshops, outreach activities, drop-in conversations, 24/7 crisis support as well as group and individual therapy.

Darr added that all types of responses are normal to a changing environment, including fear, worry, irritability, decreased ability to concentrate and changes in appetite and sleep. He also said it is important to recognize the impacts the pandemic has had on preexisting barriers to

“The University still has a long way to go to help,” Floyd, a sophomore economics major, said. “I want to see the University include more student leaders in their decision-making process so they can better make decisions to support us.”

Darr said there are challenges the UCC is facing in a virtual environment, but it’s working to address them.

“There are challenges with providing services during an abnormal situation,” Darr said. “We continue to become smarter in the provision of telemental health services, overcoming inevitable technical interruptions, being flexible as our team continues to manage working from

The University Counseling Center services available for students include virtual or telemental health services, such as workshops, outreach activities, drop-in conversations and 24/7 crisis support, as well as group and individual therapy. tpn file photo

accessing mental health care, particularly for BIremote locations, creating and encouraging parPOC communities. ticipation in opportunities for self-care, support

Not all students are completely satisfied with and action.” the University’s programming, though. Danielle Floyd added that SGB is also playing a role Floyd, the chair of the wellness committee for in the improvement of mental health on camStudent Government Board, said while Pitt has pus through various programming. Floyd said been flexible this semester, it should have put all SGB programs for Mental Health Awareness more emphasis on student opinions in transiMonth, which will be celebrated in October, will tioning counseling services. focus on addressing both the COVID-19 pan September 2,2020

demic and the Black Lives Matter movement with the virtual roundtable, COVID-19, Intersectionality and Mental Health Workshop.

Floyd said she believes including both is important to address the intersectionality of broader social issues.

“We implemented programs to focus on how our rapidly changing world affects student’s mental health,” Floyd said. “And what factors such as race, inequality and now COVID-19 play a role in negatively impacting a student’s mental health.”

SGB will also host multiple programs for the month with more than 15 events involving 10 different student organizations. Floyd said having many smaller programs will help further engage the student body in such conversations.

Sharma also said she believes Pitt needs to do more to expand mental health services on campus or help students better recognize existing programs through the UCC.

“Just how little students at Pitt know how many resources are available to them is amazing,” Sharma said. “There was a survey, which revealed that a lot of students didn’t know that the Counseling Center was open during the summer.”

Sharma said she is forming a mental health student coalition with representatives from Active Minds, National Alliance of Mental Illness, SGB and Oakland Outreach to work on a proposal to have mental health chairs in other student organizations.

“This is something that we’re hoping to change this year, where groups will have mental health chairs, which will be trained in UCC policies and procedures,” Sharma said. “They will be trained on how to handle someone in crisis and get the student the help they need, so that we can correctly support them.”

Sharma also said while the situation is not ideal, the future seems promising. She said she hopes that with increased focus on mental health, people take the issue seriously and it becomes more accepted in society.

“Everyone is realizing the effects of coronavirus on their own mental health regardless if they have a mental health illness or not,” Sharma said. “Seeing where the conversion about mental health proceeds will be key.”

Opinions

TURN YOUR ZOOM CAMERA OFF

Genna Edwards

Senior Staff Columnist

I recently discovered my new favorite Zoom feature — the turn off video button. While many students likely use it so they can check their Tinders in peace during class, I’ve discovered that it comes in handy for one very particular ailment — body-checking and overall low self-esteem.

Body-checking is a behavior most associated with low body image and eating disorders in female-presenting people, and occurs when a person “checks” on their body and weight in a mirror, scrutinizing themselves. Levels of bodychecking are higher in adult women than adult men.

Now, you view yourself on Zoom as you would in a mirror. And as other writers have already mentioned, having to see yourself in a little square day by day next to other faces, faces that you’re bound to compare yourself to, isn’t exactly healthy. For women, it can be much worse due to social pressures to always appear presentable. I suggest we embrace turning our cameras off during lectures — you’ll love it, or you won’t, in which case you can blame me.

The pressure to keep up appearances is directed largely at female-presenting people, Renee Engeln, a psychology professor at Northwestern University and author of “Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women,” writes.

“We need to wear makeup, color or blow out our hair, do our eyebrows or lashes … Whereas men are probably missing out on some haircuts and that’s about it,” Engeln said. “So when men see themselves on a video platform, they don’t look that different. The reality of the differential demands we put on women are just showing up in a different context.”

I’ve definitely had this experience many a time during lockdown. I’d find myself apologizing for not having the energy to put on makeup in the morning, or for my hair being a mess. Then it struck me that the men in my Zoom calls never said anything like that about themselves. So why was I doing it?

See Edwards on page 12

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LORI LOUGHLIN’S PRISON SENTENCE FURTHER EXPOSES BIASES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Remy Samuels Staff Columnist

Many college students remember the infamous college admissions scandal that was all the buzz in May 2019. One of the most scandalous parts about it was that it involved two high-profile actresses — Lori Loughlin of “Full House” and Felicity Huffman of “Desperate Housewives” — who bribed admissions and standardized test proctors in order to ensure their children’s acceptances into top universities.

It was recently announced that Loughlin was sentenced to two months in prison for her involvement, and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced five months. Last year, Huffman received a mere 14 days in prison for paying $15,000 to have her daughter’s exam answers secretly corrected in 2017.

These light sentences are yet another example of the flaws in the U.S. criminal justice system. While there are thousands of Americans serving years in prison for marijuana possession or for crimes they did not even commit, people such as Loughlin and Huffman continue to use their privilege and wealth to finesse the system in their favor.

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, injustices within the prison system have been particularly exacerbated. For instance, according to the NAACP, 5% of illicit drug users in the United States are African American, yet African Americans represent 29% of those arrested and 33% of those incarcerated for drug offenses. Since October 2016, there have been 1,900 people exonerated of wrongfully accused crimes, and 47% of those exonerated were African American women.

Now obviously drug charges and bribing University of Southern California admissions are two vastly different crimes. But it begs the question — if Loughlin was a lot less famous, less wealthy or a person of color, would she have been able to negotiate that same two-month sentence? There were even reports back in January that Loughlin hired a “prison coach” to teach her “prison etiquette” — such as avoiding eye contact with other pittnews.com

prisoners — and martial arts. If it wasn’t for her celebrity status and white privilege, I’m almost certain a prison coach would not have been part of her pre-incarceration regimen.

A controversial case that has recently resurfaced in reaction to Huffman’s two-week sentence is that of Kelley Williams-Bolar — a single, Black mother from Ohio who was imprisoned for falsifying her address in order to enroll her children in a better public school. This happened nearly a decade ago, but it is still extremely relevant today.

Williams-Bolar had recently divorced

Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Im es/TNS

ies.

This is what is called “boundary hopping” or “district hopping,” and while this is not an uncommon thing, it is uncommon for parents to be charged with a felony, rather than just receiving a fine or telling the parents to unenroll their kids. The Copley-Fairlawn school went as far as to hire a private investigator who stalked Williams-Bolar in order to prove she was “out of bounds.” She ended up getting convicted and handed two concurrent five-year sentences, though they were

Actress Lori Loughlin bribed admissions and standardized test proctors in order to ensure her children’s acceptance into top universities.

ultimately suspended down to 10 days.

her abusive husband and was attending the But research shows that some school disUniversity of Akron and working as a teachtricts have become increasingly strict and er’s aide all while raising her two daughters, more aggressive when they suspect a student Kayla and Jada. She wanted them to have may be boundary hopping. Maura McInmore opportunities than she had growing erney, an attorney with the Education Law up. But because the schools in Akron were Center, said there is often implicit racial bias low-performing and poorly funded, she deinvolved in these cases. cided to send her daughters to a highly re“Disproportionately, we have this implicit garded school in the Copley-Fairlawn school racial bias that’s driving these referrals,” Mcdistrict. However, the girls were ineligible to Inerney said. “That’s driving people to call attend school there, even though their father the school district and say, ‘You should inactually lived within that district’s boundarvestigate this family.’” September 2,2020

Also in 2011, Tonya McDowell, a homeless single mother in Connecticut, was charged with similar crimes to WilliamsBolar for using her babysitter’s address to enroll her son in a school in a wealthier district. McDowell was sentenced to five years in prison — which included a conviction for selling narcotics — and the babysitter lost custody of her own children and was evicted from her home.

All of this happened because a mother wanted her son to go to a school with quality teachers and access to basic things such as books and crayons. In the grand scheme of things, Loughlin, Huffman, Williams-Bolar and McDowell all had the same goal — to achieve a better education for their children. They each tried to take advantage of a system they thought was unfair, but they did this through very different means.

Williams-Bolar’s and McDowell’s children were prevented from going to certain public schools because they did not have the means to live in those wealthy districts, but for Loughlin and Huffman, means was not the issue. Because they did not believe their children could be accepted into top universities based on their own merit, they decided to bribe their way in, and ultimately prevented other qualified applicants from admission.

Loughlin was one of 33 parents who used bribery and fraud to get their children into top colleges and universities. Whether her two-month sentence is justified or not, she is just one of many privileged parents who have further exposed the injustices within both the admissions process and the criminal justice system. Ultimately, the real victims here are the qualified individuals who are deserving of spots in top schools, as well as those who face harsh consequences for trying to give their children opportunities that were not available to them.

Remy Samuels writes primarily about current social issues. Write to her at ras288@pitt. edu.

Edwards, pg.9

I tried, first, to simply stop caring about how I look. I showed up to my first day of classes with sunken eyes and a messy bun — my go-to quarantine look — but then realized a lot of my peers didn’t have their cameras on. Some professors were okay with that, trusting we were listening even if they couldn’t visibly see us listening, nodding our little heads.

So I turned my camera off. And boy, oh boy, did some beautiful feeling overtake me. I didn’t have to see my face, didn’t have to see my double chin — so I forgot about it, forgot about my physical form, and for the first time in maybe forever I just learned. Just sat there and learned. I wasn’t worried about my classmates seeing my body, I wasn’t worried about having to stare at my body myself — I became a voice with things to say, unattached from a pesky physical form.

Inhabiting a body that presents itself to the world as a woman is a tricky time indeed. Although I try not to focus on how I look, and I know I’m in college to learn and not to be hot, it can be super hard to have judging eyes on you everywhere. Women aren’t given the same leeway that men are with looks, and it does show up in academic life.

With the option to turn the camera off, or hide my self-view, I can inhabit a space where I no longer have to fall ill to the way I’ve been socialized as a woman. We are taught that if people are watching us, if people can see us, we need to be aware of our bodies. Is my hair sticking up? I’ll fix it and not fully hear what my professor is saying, so preoccupied with my flyaways. That guy is looking at me. Let me pull my shirt hem down a bit. What was the question? My stomach is coming out of my jeans — adjust, there we go.

So although I miss in-person classes as much as the next guy and I abhor the barriers of intimacy that Zoom presents, there is one good takeaway from my Zoom time. I’ll be keeping my video off whenever I can, and maybe the staring at myself less will do me some good.

Genna Edwards writes about film, gender, and culture for The Pitt News. You can drop her a line at gee9@pitt.edu.

Promiti Debi senior staff illustrator

Culture ‘A WAITING GAME’: MUSIC GROUPS NAVIGATE

CAMPUS COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS

Maggie Young Contributing Editor

Jordan Bender, a percussionist in both the Pitt Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble, said neighbors in his apartment building will likely notice him practicing his marimba, but at least he’s not using his snare drum.

“The whole building [would] hear it, or at least the people under me and around us,” Bender, a senior computer science and music performance double major, said. “Out of respect to everyone who lives here … that would just be too extreme.”

But he said other campus musicians don’t fare as well in terms of rehearsal space, since students still can’t access campus buildings such as Bellefield Hall and the Music Building.

Various music groups on campus face a challenging year in terms of access to spaces, equipment and each other’s company due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but many plan to utilize their living spaces and recording technologies to safely create pandemic-era virtual audio experiences for listeners. Heinz Chapel Choir, one of the largest student music groups on campus, declined to comment.

These difficulties presented themselves to Roger Zahab, the orchestra director, leading up to the ensemble’s first rehearsal on Aug. 26. The group of 45 gathered via Zoom to play collectively as Zahab gave cues, but each musician turned off their microphone.

Instead of listening to everyone else live, which Zahab said would create chaos, musicians played alongside a preexisting recording of the pieces, but not without making adjustments.

“When you’re playing together, you can gauge how loud you should be compared to what you’re hearing,” Zahab said. “In the internet universe, you have to be in tune, in time and in dynamic range with yourself.”

Instrumentalists recorded themselves using their phones or programs such as Garage Band. Though not ideal, Zahab said these technologies do the job.

“The recordings that are possible with an pittnews.com

iPad are quite good,” Zahab said. “The quality of phone recordings is better than what we used to have in magnetic tape.”

According to Bender, the Jazz Ensemble will have twice-weekly online rehearsals this semester, with time slots allotted for each instrumental group. He doesn’t know whether or not he will hear other musicians while he practices, but he assumed this rehearsal will be similar to that of the orchestra, including the nuances lost without in-person rehearsals.

“You kind of have to pretend like they’re all pages.

Emma Cash, the group’s president, said one member of the group has recording equipment they will share with other members, so everyone can record their parts on their own.

“We’re just trying to do as much music as we can while still following University guidelines and policies,” Cash, a senior chemistry major, said.

For students without access to recording devices, Bender and Zahab said the music department is working to give them USB microphones.

The Pitt Symphony Orchestra gathered via Zoom on Wednesday for its first rehearsal. Zoom screenshot

there when it’s just you playing,” Bender said. “It’s But not all musical equipment is as easily definitely going to be a weird and interesting exexchanged. Bender said he plays upward of 12 perience, because it’s going to be more like you’re different types of percussion instruments during in a recording studio than you’re actually in an performances for either group. He owns several orchestra.” instruments, such as a glockenspiel and tambou

Not all groups will transition to collective onrines, but he usually relies on several Universityline rehearsals. Pitches and Tones, an a cappella owned instruments housed on campus. group, plans to instead have individuals work “People in the music department are trying alone throughout the year and contribute to a to figure out a way and they’re being extremely new EP on the group’s Spotify and SoundCloud helpful,” Bender said. “But there’s only so much September 2,2020

they can do and I can do. It’s more or less a waiting game.”

Zahab has access to Bellefield and the Music Building and has been able to get instruments for performers who left equipment there in March, including one particular student doing the semester from home who drove from Philadelphia to pick up his bass.

With the instruments members can access, Zahab said he and the orchestra’s team of sound engineers plan to arrange all of the recordings students send to him into a cohesive performance. These will air in prerecorded concerts in October and December.

Both the orchestra and Pitches and Tones plan on adding new members to the group in preparation for their respective future music installments. Auditions for all five a cappella groups took place in a Google doc, where interested students could audition from home by filling out the doc and attaching a YouTube link of their performance.

“We’re super happy that we can do that because we were worried, obviously in-person auditions aren’t really an option, but we’re excited to welcome new people into the group, and they can do the EP with us,” Cash said.

Auditions were open until Tuesday night, and vocalists will now go through a callback process. Cash said about 30 people had auditioned for at least one of the five groups as of Monday.

“That’s a little bit less than we usually get,” Cash said. “But it’s still a really good number considering.”

Zahab said he welcomes auditions at any time, and has received 10 to 15 so far. He mentioned plans for potential in-person rehearsals in small groups if the University moved to the least restrictive Guarded Risk posture and University buildings reopened. In the meantime, he just wants to uphold an agreement he made with musicians over the summer.

“I just promised that, somehow, in the fall,” Zahab said, “we would make music together.”

‘SWOONING’ OVER ART: CONTEMPORARY CRAFT TO OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Annabelle Walter

For The Pitt News

Art is something that has the ability to bring people together. Artist Swoon’s exhibit at Contemporary Craft, “The Heart Lives Through the Hands,” does this quite literally, bringing living people in close contact with surreal human figures.

The exhibition is the first at Contemporary Craft, a self-named “space for creativity,” since it closed its Strip District building for relocation last October. The gallery will open at 22% capacity on Thursday in its new Upper Lawrenceville building, and while the exhibit is free, visitors must reserve a timed ticket on the space’s website.

The first thing visitors see when entering the exhibit is an asymmetrical collection of church tiles, pieces that Swoon worked on while revitalizing an old church in Braddock, a nearby Pittsburgh suburb. Swoon has passed on this project to someone else this year, hoping to “make her sole living as an artist,” according to her assistant, Kate Lydon.

But these tiles weren’t just the work of Swoon. Lydon said while revitalizing the church, the artist enlisted the help of local children, teaching them how to create intricate designs on the tiles. This taught children a valuable skill while giving them a hand in revitalizing a building in their own community, Lydon said.

Stephanie Sun, the director of operations and finance for Contemporary Craft, said the church project in Braddock was one of the events that first introduced Swoon to Contemporary Craft. Although this is her first solo show in Pittsburgh, she has worked with the gallery before.

“I have many interactions with Swoon and have worked with her before. pittnews.com

One of her works was in our social justice exhibition — “Mindful: Exploring Mental Health Through Art” in 2015 [and 2016] and has hosted a print sale in our space to fundraise for her Braddock church building revitalization project,” Sun said.

Another piece, “Dawn and Gemma,” depicts a mother and child. The piece

Sun also said the choice to feature Swoon in the gallery’s new building opening hinged on the relationship between the artist and Contemporary Craft and their closely aligned beliefs and interests. She said she felt both parties are heavily invested in the greater Pittsburgh area, and aim to share art with which all people can identify.

Artist Swoon’s exhibit at Contemporary Craft, “The Heart Lives Through the Hands.” Courtesy of Contemporary Craft

is mounted onto a many-sided “found” “Her work is also incredible techniobject and created using a technique cally and visually diverse and tells huthat involves layering paper and paint to man stories,” Sun said. “The sense of achieve the desired result. connection to people and the commu

Visitors can view the pieces at a close nity through her art is one of the key range, which Contemporary Craft welreasons why we choose Swoon as our comes. Sun pointed out that the exhibiinaugural exhibition to open the Lawtion has no lines on the floor restricting renceville building.” access and/or movement, so visitors can Contemporary Craft originally get as close to the art as they want to. planned to open the new building in September 2,2020

April, but had to delay the process due to COVID-19 safety concerns, Sun said. She noted that opening now is not ideal due to the pandemic, the organization felt it couldn’t afford to remain closed for much longer.

“A huge part of the reason to open during the COVID-19 is for the sustainability of the organization. We have been closed since October 2019 due to the relocation,” Sun said. “Without a proper space to welcome the public, we couldn’t generate earned revenue.”

Sun said the new building is wellsuited to Contemporary Craft’s needs — it was large enough to host classes, exhibitions and Contemporary Craft’s store. The building was also within the organization’s budget and required very little restoration.

“[The building] sparked ideas right from the beginning of how we can do very little in renovation to transform it into a space the organization needs,” Sun said.

Sun said the organization worked with a group of museums and galleries to determine the best safety measures for reopening.

“We were able to learn from the group and carefully plan our opening and safety protocol that is suitable for an organization of our size,” Sun said.

Sun also said seeing other galleries reopen and hearing enthusiastic responses from previous Contemporary Craft visitors convinced the organization to open its doors and safely welcome the Pittsburgh community into the new building.

“The successful reopening of peer organizations and the enthusiastic response from our visitors upon hearing the news of our opening, is really what encouraged us to move forward with opening,” Sun said. 14

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