Two Department of Art and Art History students turned the MEDICI Gallery into a 3-D remake of Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “Bedroom in Arles,” for two weeks and watched students, faculty and the general public interact with a live version of the painting.
Haley Heesacker, a junior with a double major in art and advertising from Lincoln, Nebraska; and Michael Johnson, a junior art major from West Des Moines, Iowa, who operate under the title “Sits and Giggles,” created the installation.
“She came to me with the idea, and I was really excited about it,” Johnson said. “She’s the mastermind behind all of this.”
Heesacker said she heard some students discussing the lack of a lounge space in Richards Hall.
“We have seats and tables downstairs, but it’s right next to the wood shop and sculpture, so there are drills, and it’s not very peaceful,” she said. “It’s not a huge issue, but everyone can find somewhere to sit eventually. We find an empty classroom, but it’s not an actual lounge.”
She began collecting an assortment of ideas to create an environment that people could sit in.
“I was trying to come up with a bunch of fun ideas,” she said. “We were just thinking of an environment that people can walk into and touch everything and observe. For example, maybe it could be a small bug, and everything else is big leaves that people can sit on or something like that.”
Johnson said they eventually discussed putting their environment in the student-run MEDICI Gallery.
“She originally came to me with the idea that Richards doesn’t have a lounge, but we have the MEDICI Gallery,” Johnson said. “We can turn that into a lounge, but we can also keep it as an art installation, so people can lounge around in a decorated, artistic space.”
While watercoloring with some additional friends, Heesacker discussed some of the ideas she had collected.
“When it’s the first one, it has to be cool,” she said.
Heesacker went on the study abroad trip that the Department of Art and Art History offers to London and Paris last summer, where she saw the original Van Gogh’s “Bedroom in Arles.”
“There’s a museum that does their own rendition of this painting, but they have a higher budget and are more precise to the actual painting,” she said. “I thought that was so cool, and I love this painting.”
Johnson said the idea took off from there.
“We were all really excited about it,” she said. “It’s recognizable. We felt people would see it and go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s that Van Gogh painting. I’m excited about this, and I’m going to be excited for more of these shows that these girls do.’”
They started brainstorming the idea about a month before it opened, but only started building it about four days before it opened.
“A week beforehand, I started going around and looking at furniture places, and I got the chairs,” Johnson said. “And then we actually started working on it that Friday.
The installation opened Sept. 25 and ran through Oct. 4. Heesacker and Johnson encouraged visitors to post photos on Instagram with the hashtag #SNGgogh and posted their own photos on their Instagram @SitsAndGiggles.
They were overwhelmed by the response.
“I thought this is going to be great, and people are going to think it’s going to be so much fun,” Heesacker said. “I didn’t think the Journal Star would say that’s cool.”
The installation was featured in local media, including a story in the Lincoln Journal-Star.
“I didn’t expect it to take off the way it did,” Johnson said. “I just thought my friends would do it because I asked them to, but people who are complete strangers have been tagging themselves in these posts on Instagram and using our hashtag. It’s incredible to see.”
People got creative in interacting with the space.
“This one girl came back with her Dad, and they were having a pillow fight,” Heesacker said. “My sculpture teacher brought his two-year-old in here. It was so cute.”
“They all make me so excited,” Johnson said. “Whenever people are interacting with it, I think that’s great. When you can make art that’s not just ‘Oh yes, I’m looking at this. This brings me so much joy.’ But instead, ‘I’m hiding the towels, take a selfie!’”
Sits and Giggles plans to do more installations, possibly as many as three per semester. Their next one will be a holiday themed one in December.
They also were invited by the Nebraska Union to do a permanent installation at the Union.
“That’s so amazing,” Johnson said. “To have these people from the Union say we read about this in the Journal Star, and we really want to talk with you about setting up an installation in the Union, it’s really incredible.”
Heesacker and Johnson both say seeing people interact with the installation has been the best part of the experience.
“We did a lot of work, but we only did about half of this art project,” Johnson said. “We built it, but the other half was the fact that people could come and interact with it and use it. That’s all them. They are the ones who completed this. So a big thank you to everyone who supported us and supported this and came out and had fun.”
Heesacker added, “It’s really great to hear people in class say, ‘I saw your exhibition. You guys did a great job.’ Or ‘I saw that on Facebook or online.’”
Johnson said she enjoyed the experience of working on her first installation.
“I really like the idea of not just putting art on walls, but making walls and making space into art,” she said. “I got to work with Haley, and it’s great just the way that you learn from other artists when you collaborate like this.”
Johnson said their version of “Bedroom in Arles” did what it was supposed to do.
“People have sat. People have giggled. We lived up to our name,” she said.
Follow them on Instagram @SitsAndGiggles to keep up with their latest projects.