The Century Project

After visiting the century project with the class, I was really moved. I was and am proud of my fellow classmates and teachers for writing what they feel, and taking a stand against the censoring of the project. I was so moved by the project that I took my mother back the next day who has had four different cancers from the time she 19, she is now 56. She has many scars along her stomach all the way to her neck. She has had a mastectomy, stem-cell transplants, radiation, and chemotherapy; it is quite evident her body physically does not look the best. It is, however, still functioning and doing what it needs to do. She is very insecure about her body and until this project she seemed to feel like she was the only one who was so insecure. It made my mother really open her eyes and see she is not alone, and it was inspirational. I am embarrassed that my school would be the first to censor such a moving project. It is insulting to the students and artist. After my mother and I left we talked about why they would do such a thing, and the only mutual agreement that we reached is that they did not research the project before they made the call to censor it. That reminds me of when a certain someone tried to ban books that she had never read. It is ignorance, and it does not teach us much about self expression. In a school with such a wonderful art department, it makes me feel like they are trying to tell those students to censor their creativity for fear of it being "offensive"? I hope this does not become a trend with other schools picking up on the stigma that UNCW has no put on this project!