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Imran Qureshi Continues Painting Despite Interruption of State Funeral at Washington National Cathedral

Imran Qureshi paints outside the Washington National Cathedral as servicemen stand in the background. Photo by Sam DeFusco, Teen Observer.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — At one of the hubs for the By The People arts festival at the Washington National Cathedral, the art pieces were meant to be installations. However, artist Imran Qureshi found his piece turning into performance art.

Qureshi is an award-winning artist from Pakistan who puts meaning into his work. In his current piece, he covers the National Cathedral’s front steps in blue and white paint. “This is meant to show the idea of life,” Qureshi said. “I tried to create the illusion that the water is coming out of the Cathedral. Man is made up of water. The human body is made up of water.”

Qureshi pointed to the stairs at the front doors of the church. “The mural at the top of the stairs is about the creation of human beings, how life is growing out of water,” he said. “The painting is a dialogue with the mural about creation. I also want to show how life is growing out of water, and have people think about how you are cleansing your soul in a religious place, spiritually.”

Due to rain the previous day, Qureshi was unable to complete his art as planned. On Thursday, while tourists watched, he hurriedly added white highlights to careful splashes of blue on the cobbled plaza in front of the Cathedral. But his work was interrupted by marching soldiers doing their bi-annual training for a state funeral, who trod over the just-dried painting.  They took over the area Qureshi painted, causing him to rush to finish.

Servicemen line up for State Funeral Practice outside Washington National Cathedral, with Qureshi’s painting covering the ground beneath them. Photo by Sam DeFusco, Teen Observer.

The state funeral takes place when a past or present president dies. “All of the military services get together, and they perform the state funeral, so right now we’re doing practice runs to make sure it goes smoothly,” said Army Sergeant Zach Bartlett.

The Military District of Washington practices this rare event at least once a year, so the entire ceremony runs perfectly. Steve Saphos, a volunteer verger at the Washington National Cathedral, explained that these practices are to ensure that every member participating in the service knows precisely what they are doing.

Imran Qureshi continues to paint about life and the water flowing through us, no matter who or what tries to prevent him from doing so.

Qureshi has had exhibits displayed in a multitude of places, from the Roof Garden at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to his “hauntingly beautiful show at the Ikon Gallery,” as described by Laura Cumming in her article for The Guardian. Qureshi has won the Lux Style Award for Achievement in Fine Art, the ArtNow Lifetime Achievement Award 2016, the Deutsche Bank Award for “Artist of the Year” in 2013, and was the first Pakistani to be awarded the Medal of Arts Award by the U.S. State Department in 2017.

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The Poor People’s Campaign Takes on Capitol Hill.

Chalkboard side of a wooden structure outside the Poor People’s Campaign tent with the Capitol Building in the background. Photo by Sam DeFusco, Teen Observer.

Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, June 21, people gathered outside of a large white tent near Capitol Hill to revive the mission that Martin Luther King Jr. began 50 years ago.

These people were rallying as members of the Poor People’s Campaign.

According to John Wessel-McCoy, a volunteer for the campaign who was at Capitol Hill, the focus of the Poor People’s Campaign is to give a voice to those who do not have one. “We are trying to build the organization in states all over the country,” McCoy said as music blared from speakers, grabbing the attention of people walking by.

“Tens of millions don’t have access to healthcare. People are dying because they don’t have access to healthcare,” McCoy explained. He also went on to discuss how the Poor People’s campaign is trying to create a moral revival.

At Capitol Hill on Thursday, the Poor People’s Campaign was working to bring attention to problems occurring in D.C. Such problems include racism and its effects on poverty, ecology and health, militarism and the war economy, the homeless population and more.

They base their agenda on fundamental rights, and they say the campaign is “a national call for moral revival,” according to the Poor People’s Campaign. “There is a distorted moral narrative out there,” said McCoy.

At Capitol Hill, the Poor People’s Campaign handed out papers with information about their campaign and what they are trying to accomplish. They also give the history of the campaign and how it all began with Martin Luther King Jr.

Poor People’s Campaign poster. Photo by Sam DeFusco, Teen Observer.

“Fifty years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many other leaders launched a Poor People’s Campaign to tackle the pervasive problems of systemic racism, poverty, and militarism,” according to the Poor People’s Campaign. “By many measures, these interrelated problems are worse today than they were in 1968. And if you add in climate change and ecological devastation, the urgency is even greater.”

The Poor People’s Campaign is based on people’s religious and constitutional values that call for justice. They are committed to aiding people affected by systemic racism, poverty, discrimination, the war economy, and more in a peaceful way. The Campaign promotes peaceful protests, and violence is not tolerated by them.

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Gas leak at AU sparks evacuations

 

 

Firefighters stand outside Abbey Joel Butler Pavilion to ensure no cars go through the area. They swept the various buildings to check gas concentration and clear each building for reentry. Photo by Sam DeFusco, Teen Observer.

WASHINGTON — A gas leak at American University Wednesday morning sparked the evacuation of central campus, closed roads and disrupted university businesses for almost two hours. No one was harmed.

Construction workers believe they hit an unmarked gas line as they were working on an underground utilities project, according to David Osborne, AU’s Director of Energy and Engineering.

“The contractor was digging to put in the underground hot water lines as part of this big project,” Osborne said. “My understanding is they called out missed utilities before the day they were supposed to, and they ended up hitting a line that was either wasn’t marked or wasn’t where it should be, which caused it to break.”

The construction workers immediately notified campus police, Washington Gas and the fire department, and worked to seal the leak at the excavation site behind the McKinley Building, Osborne said. Police sent out an evacuation alert at 8:32 a.m. and sounded a campus-wide alarm at 8:50 a.m.

In the cafeteria, the calm eating and clanking of dishes paused as an alarm suddenly sounded and drowned out the noise of the dining hall. Students began to stand up in confusion and quickly make their way upstairs to evacuate the dining hall, some leaving their belongings behind. Workers in the campus Starbucks grabbed bagels and coffee to go.

“I was in the terrace of McKinley when the fire alarm went off at around 8:50,” said McKenna Solberg, a student attending a summer communications program at AU. “Another Comm kid and I left the building and there was caution tape all around outside and a really potent smell of gas.”

The rotten-egg smell of gas wafted over groups of evacuated students gathered on the quad in front of the Mary Graydon student center, as they waited to be relocated. Some wondered aloud why they were congregating so close to a building that could potentially explode. Several fire trucks arrived on the scene.

Campus police closed McKinley Hall, Butler Pavilion, Bender Arena, Sports Center Garage and shops in the pavilion tunnel. The police conducted a sweep to make sure that everyone was out of the buildings, then closed off the area with yellow caution tape.

Caution tape blocks the road underneath Abbey Joel Butler Pavilion after people were evacuated because of a gas leak that started from a construction site. People were barred from the area until the gas leak was contained. Photo by Sam DeFusco, Teen Observer.

Summer program teachers and counselors led the students to unaffected buildings to continue their classes.

“I have 150 students here on campus and 16 classes and so we needed to move a number of classes and spaces, but fortunately, we had already gone over the proper protocol, which is that we meet out on the Quad,” said Sarah Menke-Fish, the director of AU’s Discover the World of Communications program. “They broke out into classes and sections. I found immediate spaces that they could go to.”

AU police sounded the all clear at about 10:15 a.m., reopening all buildings and roadways.  Ian Greenlee, Lieutenant of Police Operations for AU, said no one was harmed and there will be no long-term effects from the gas leak. According to Greenlee, all of the necessary and proper protocols were followed to contain the leak and evaluate the air quality of each of the affected buildings. Gas should be restored by end of the day, though the use of hot water may be further affected, along with possible cooking operations.

[This report was compiled by Prof. Farley’s Professional Newswriting class.]