Seth Mecklenburg | Arts & Life Co-Editor
Show Us Your Stuff is an annual art and digital media competition in its eighth year. The Buena Vista University (BVU) competition is run by the Teaching and Learning with Technology Center (TLTC) and is open to all students and members of the community. Andrea Nicholson, a senior theatre arts and arts management major has been a major part of getting everything ready.
“We really want to see what students, staff and or community can create with digital media or music production. We really want to create an outlet for the creative work. Breaking out of the bubble of BV has been one of our biggest challenges. Last year we only had BV students that submitted so we are really hoping that we get diverse group of submissions,” Nicholson said.
There are two categories, static and multimedia. Static is for anything still like photography or graphic design. Multimedia is anything that moves. However, you don’t need to be a college student or professional to be creative. Which is why the competition is open to more than just students.
“It’s not a competition that’s about BV, it’s all about creativity. Its not what about what you’ve been taught but what can you come up with. What have you picked up through your real world experiences,” Nicholson said.
Show Us Your Stuff did start out as a way to push students to do something new according to Jay Benedict, manager of the TLTC.
“It started out with trying to give students an opportunity to use all of their resources. Whether that means resources in the sense of people or hardware and software,” Benedict said.
Benedict hopes the competition continues to expand and reach more people.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if a High School student could blow everyone out of the water? I think it would be interesting if there were people producing really high quality material that weren’t students,” Benedict said.
Five judges grade the material individually based on a rubric and Benedict explains the reason for having two categories is simple.
“We don’t want to take a way from the still image that could be beautiful and have a profound effect on someone, with a moving creation that looks more complex, that’s unfair when both have their advantages,” Benedict said.
Benedict doesn’t think the competition is where it could be yet. He wants to see it grow out of the box that it’s currently in. According to Benedict, they average somewhere around sixty entries, but he thinks they can reach more than that.
“There are times where we get submissions two months in advance and times we get them the day before. Either way we still have a competition and we hope students see us as a resource. But I don’t think it has the impact that I think it could. It’s nice; it gives students an outlet to display their content. I’d love to see it become a huge deal,” Benedict said.
Nicholson and Benedict both want people to be able to express themselves with Show Us Your Stuff, and hope to see more people use it as an opportunity to show themselves creatively.
“It’s not often that some people get an opportunity to showcase their work, and have other people see it. This is a great chance for them to do that,” Nicholson said.
The deadline for submissions is Saturday, May 5th and winners will be announced Wednesday, May 9th. There are prizes in the form of gift cards this year. 1st=$150, 2nd=$60, 3rd=$30 in each category.
Graphic by Cassie Forsyth
