Piñata Playhouse

Do you ever feel like taking a stick and whacking the crap out of your living room?
With Jessica Campbell and Bridget Moser’s Art POP! exhibit entitled “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” you can. It won’t cost you a penny and if you’re lucky some candy will fall out.
The Concordia students are loading their room in the Notman house with easy chairs, a bookshelf, a mattress, books and bottles all stuffed with caramels and bags of Doritos. Viewers are expected to take a swing at anything in the room, and collect as much candy as they want.
“It’s pretty ingrained in us to go in a gallery and not destroy something,” said Campbell. “That’s what makes it so inherently absurd and fun.”
The artists seemingly have nothing in common; Campbell is a painter in the fine arts department and co-director of Concordia’s VAV art gallery while Moser is a filmmaker. Campbell makes paintings of remembered domestic spaces while Moser is known for absurdist humour.
The connection between the two, however, is their passion for reflective art.
One of Moser’s projects, for instance, consisted of her and her friends dressing up like their fathers singing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” This presentation reflected Moser’s most cherished father – daughter memory, of her getting drunk with her father and singing the song together.
Campbell can relate, as most of her work is reflective paintings of places from her childhood. From the house that she grew up in to her grandmother’s bathroom, Campbell’s demure painting style is the basis for the furniture in the piñata room.
Besides for artistic achievement, the main goal of the piñata room is extremely carnal.
“We Just want people to have fun, to break something,” said Campbell.
Sticks will be provided.