This week, justArts spoke with Ingrid Schorr, the director of the Office of the Arts at Brandeis, who organized the JustArts exhibition that went up this past week. The exhibition, JustArts, while similarly named to the Justice’s Arts section, justArts, is not affiliated with the newspaper.

justArts: How many years has the JustArts exhibition been going on for?

Ingrid Schorr: We started this in 2008, and I could count on my fingers how many times we’ve done it ― we used to do it every year, and then we went to every other year, so we’ve done it at least five times since 2008.

JA: What motivated the department to start this exhibition?

IS: Well actually, I was inspired by a program at MIT called “Artists Behind the Desk,” which is for staff people to show their artwork, and actually it’s a much bigger program where they teach master classes and workshops for each other, so I thought I would start with the exhibition.

JA: What was your favorite part of this year’s exhibition?

IS: My favorite part is not a piece in the show ― it’s the transformation from the day where everybody drops off their work ― and I think we have 28 artists bringing in up to five pieces each. So all this work comes in and is all literally on the floor in the gallery, and then we start the wonderful process of sorting it, and putting it up on the walls, and finding groupings that look good together and making everybody’s work look the best that we can by putting it in exactly the right place. And after two days, we have a coherent show ― I hope! So, for me, it’s that curatorial process that I really love.

JA: Do you have any pieces in the show?

IS: I do ― I have a little sculpture.

JA: What’s it called?

IS: I don’t know if I gave it a name! It’s two pieces ― it was originally two pieces, and then I put them together as one, so one doesn’t have a name, but the other is called “Fiber Study and Iron Worker’s House.”

JA: What do you hope the Brandeis community gets out of the exhibition?

IS: I hope they see just how talented and imaginative their community is and how generous people are to share their work with the community.

JA: How long will the exhibition be up for?

IS: Through Nov. 13.

— Lizzie Grossman