“Polar Bears in Space” by Julianne Gadoury

“Polar Bears in Space, uses the metaphor of the polar bear to talk about the larger issues behind global warming. We often fail to fully understand and gain knowledge about and push to the back of our minds many issues that affect us socially and on the global level.”
Julianne Gadoury’s Artist’s Statement

A few weeks back one of my friends who graduated with me from the Marist Art program wrote a disturbing email blast about how her work at SUNY Stony Brook was being censored by the administration. Julianne Gadoury is studying for her MFA and had created a series of works using the polar bear as a metaphor for global warming. One part of her installation was a wire sculpture that was to be suspended above the pool in Charles B. Wang Center on campus. After receiving the go-ahead from building supervisors and maintenance staff everything was looking good. On the opening day of UNBOUND, the President Shirley Strum Kenny ordered the sculpture to be removed citing that it didn’t fit her aesthetic view of the building and therefore censored the artwork.

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