It could seem strange that a radio station—a medium that is not visual by nature—would be the theme of an art exhibit. But stepping into the Student Activities Center (SAC) Art Gallery in the next month may show a visitor that there is more to see in music than previously thought.
Stony Brook University’s broadcast radio station, WUSB 90.1 FM, is celebrating its 35 year anniversary with an art exhibit in the SAC Art Gallery, room 169.
The exhibit, which was constructed and maintained in collaboration with the Craft Center, opened on Sept. 5 and will run until Oct. 4. Its doors are open from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday to Thursday, and on Wednesday the exhibit stays open until 9 p.m. for ‘late night in the gallery.’ The Wednesday night event consists of a casual atmosphere full of different activities, including DJ performances by various WUSB personalities, an open mic night and a series of lectures from the WUSB DJs. But the exhibit is not completely about celebrating WUSB’s big anniversary.
“Really what we’re hoping for is that this will bring recognition of the radio station to more students on campus,” Isobel Breheny-Schafer, the station’s general manager, said.
Breheny-Schafer said that many students do not realize the extent of the opportunities that WUSB offers to its volunteers.
According to WUSB’s website, WUSB is “Long Island’s largest non-commercial, free-form radio station…. [and] can be heard on most of Long Island and in Southern Connecticut, parts of NYC (Brooklyn and Queens), and Westchester County.”
“If students participate in the radio station,” Breheny-Schafer said, “it gives them a chance to be heard by all of Long Island.”
Along one wall of the gallery, memorabilia creates a visual timeline beginning in 1970 and ends in the future.
The timeline is a physical display of what WUSB’s founding general manager, Norm Prusslin, called the “life and times” of the station. It is represented in “A Note From WUSB’s Founding General Manager,” the timeline’s starting piece.
The yellowed newspaper articles reporting the radio station’s advent or lauding its achievements, bright record covers showing only a sampling of WUSB’s eclectic sound and photographs and posters autographed by the station’s famous guests are all property of the radio station.
Everything on display in the exhibit belongs to the station, Ari Davanelos, WUSB’s president and program director, said.
From the CD player designed to look like an early, wood-grained portable radio, the record player and the turntables, almost everything on display has been used by WUSB in its 35 year history.
The exhibit also displays a collection of the station’s many historical T-shirts and sweaters, as well as a sculpture made out of vinyl records by two Stony Brook University graduate students.
There is also an interactive portion of the gallery: recorders are available to take any message visitors want to relay, a promotion for their club or a shout out to their friends, and, at the exhibit’s close, the recordings will be digitized and uploaded to WUSB’s website.
If one thing is certain, WUSB seems to try not to be exclusive. “We do have a legacy here of music and sense of community. Not just on campus but in the local community as well,” Arianna Warner, assistant manager of the SAC gallery, said.
The station’s music preferences which, according to its website, range from pop, polka and metal to world music also include “spontaneous mixes and groovy combustion” to their programming of “music, news, public affairs, drama and sports programming.”
