{"id":11581,"date":"2024-08-01T15:39:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=11581"},"modified":"2024-08-05T10:38:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T14:38:56","slug":"georgia-southern-art-professor-wins-global-covid-19-monument-design-contest-unveiling-in-chicago-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2024\/08\/01\/georgia-southern-art-professor-wins-global-covid-19-monument-design-contest-unveiling-in-chicago-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Southern art professor wins global COVID-19 monument design contest, unveiling in Chicago in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Menacing spiked images of the coronavirus have been reimagined with a gentler profile for a global design contest, which was recently won by Georgia Southern University Art Professor Casey Schachner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In honor of the five-year marker of the pandemic, Schachner\u2019s winning design for the COVID-19 Monument of Honor, Remembrance, and Resilience, selected by the COVID-19 Monument Commission, will be unveiled in Chicago in spring 2025. The monument will be a major outdoor public sculpture and park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Submissions for the global contest were open to interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere weren\u2019t a lot of specifications of what they were looking for,\u201d said Schachner. \u201cThey just wanted this monument that would both honor the lives lost and be in remembrance to first responders. So it was really inspiring to me. Obviously, COVID affected all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following deep research dives into the pandemic, the dandelion emerged as Schachner\u2019s muse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBesides all of the data of lives lost and the massive impact of the pandemic, I kept coming across that medical illustration of the COVID-19 virus, which we all can imagine,\u201d she said. \u201cThe sphere with the little tendrils coming out felt very similar to plants. Then I started thinking about plants and landing on how similar the image was to a dandelion head, particularly the puffy dandelion. I started thinking more about the symbolism of plants alongside COVID because plants are about rebirth and regrowth. So I started digging into the symbolism and significance of dandelions. And it\u2019s interesting because all across the world they have these themes of resilience. They also have a lot of medicinal qualities, so wellness and recovery kept coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dandelions also stir memories of youthful innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so identifiable, you know, even for a child,\u201d she said. \u201cWe remember blowing the dandelions and watching them. It\u2019s sort of magical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Schachner, who won $20,000 for her design, is currently consulting with the COVID-19 Monument Committee in Chicago that will bring the soaring 20 to 30-foot outdoor display of yellow dandelions and a flurry of their tufts, to fruition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order for the monument to become a reality, there is a grassroots fundraising campaign. At present, the COVID-19 Monument Commission is fundraising to construct the piece that will reside on a plot of land within the Illinois Medical District, which is one of the largest urban medical districts in the nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on what I know of similar-scale sculptures and monuments, it\u2019s going to require a pretty significant budget because they\u2019re working from the ground up, with the foundation, electrical work and engineering to make sure that the pieces can be safe around the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schachner grew up in Florida and Hilton Head Island and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Baylor University and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Montana. While earning her undergraduate degree, she spent a semester abroad in Cortona, Italy, where she fell in love with stone carving, and then returned as an artist in residence within the program for a year. Once back home, she moved to Vermont and served in stone carving apprenticeships at local quarries. Later, she opened her own studio in Florida and then became a professor at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, before joining the faculty on the Armstrong Campus in Savannah in 2021. \u2014 Melanie Sim\u00f3n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Menacing spiked images of the coronavirus have been reimagined with a gentler profile for a global design contest, which was recently won by Georgia Southern University Art Professor Casey Schachner.  In honor of the five-year marker of the pandemic, Schachner\u2019s winning design for the COVID-19 Monument of Honor, Remembrance, and Resilience, selected by the COVID-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-11581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-summer-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}