For most, the act of public speaking is an occasional necessity, and often a nauseating prospect. In the eyes of Adam Overton and all those who collaborated on the Pomona College Museum of Art’s newest exhibit, it is a medium of art.
On Thursday night, the museum revealed the installation of The Bureau of Experimental Speech and Holy Theses (BESHT), a title that leaves much to the imagination.
“The nature of the exhibit will be discovered by those who bear witness, in person in our Free Speech Auditorium, and online via our live broadcast, and will be cultivated by those dare to stand up and take part," Overton wrote in an email to TSL, under the alias of Professor Pada Pagu, a “visiting professor of Embarassology.”
The Free Speech Auditorium is the centerpiece of the exhibit, a space that can be reserved by anybody in the Claremont Community. The artists hope that Claremont citizens will find the auditorium to be “a delightful respite where they can experiment, fiddle, tamper, misrepresent, bear witness, meddle, gossip, unearth, sponsor, espouse, defend, promote, preach, pray, pontificate, teach, sound off, prognosticate, forewarn, and so forth,” Overton wrote. However, spectators are equally welcome.