Ashanti Davis
Exhibits Project Supervisor
Fleet Science Center
San Diego, California

What are you passionate about?

I am most passionate about a word I learned in university that relates to the school of thought created through the Bauhaus. This word is more than just a word. It is an idea and an expression of everything that the Bauhaus was and a concept I feel is ingrained in me. Gesmatkunstwerk, or “the total art work” as it roughly translates, explores the connectivity between art and architecture, but it means so much more than that. The total artwork, to my understanding, relates to the finished piece and the steps taken to get there. It could be music, or an exhibition, or food, all things I am also passionate about, but it requires that every fine detail be thought out and explored. A building that pays attention to its position in the sky, its surrounding space, the light that touches the inside, how the artwork is hung on the wall, how the furniture is positioned, the musical echo of footsteps in the halls, and how people interact with one another in the space itself. That is the total artwork, the finished piece, and I am hugely passionate about this concept and how it is incorporated into my life.