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A new exhibit by Kentucky artist Erica Meuser, “Kent State/May 4: The Mak-

ing of an American Tragedy in Art,” is on display now at William T. Young

Library through the end of the summer. The multimedia exhibit centers on

the events of May 4, 1970, in which the Ohio National Guard shot thirteen

students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University, killing four,

and the subsequent protests that occurred on the University of Kentucky

campus and colleges around the country. As a whole, Meuser’s work con-

siders the complicated process through which tragic events are collectively

remembered or forgotten.

The exhibit, curated as a walking tour, begins in the Rose Street entrance

of Young Library, winds its way behind the central staircase into Core 1, and

then descends the stairs into the Basement. “The experience can change

depending on where the viewer enters the exhibit,” said Meuser. “There’s

no right way to see it.”

Comprised of paintings, videos, charcoal drawings, textiles, objects, and

photo prints, Meuser’s work blurs the line between past and present by

highlighting visual and auditory motifs that recur across media and across

time: the female artistic gaze, looking out from behind a camera or out of a

window; chiming bells and blooming trees; guns, militarism, and the univer-

sity campus; mothers and American boyhood; innocence in the face of vi-

olence; and the fragile connection between memory and place. By walking

through the exhibit, viewers experience “flickers” of images, objects, and

textures, passing in and out of awareness “just like memory,” said Meuser.