Update on Brian Doan’s exhibit at Cypress College

Jiffy Lube-quick summary: A second protest against Cypress College has been called for tomorrow Wednesday.

Slightly longer version:

On Monday last week, Lac Tan Nuygen‘s group came to see the college president to hand in his organization’s protest letter. The president was out of town. But Nuygen did get an appointment to speak to the Dean of the School of Arts, the Department Head of Photography, the Director of the gallery holding the exhibit, and Brian Doan.

So, on Tuesday, they met for a couple of hours. There’s an audio here posted by Do Thuan, one of the participants (the Bolsavik hasn’t been able to listen to it because he’s missing a plugin), and a report on Nguoi Viet here (in Vietnamese). The bottom line can be summarized by something Nuygen said, is: “We’re not interested in your arguments about freedom of expression because we’ve heard them several times already, we just want you to take down the photo.”

Coming back that Tuesday evening, Nuygen sent out an email expressing his disappointment and scheduling a Wednesday meeting to plan for a Thursday protest at Cypress. There weren’t a lot of takers, but that did not deter Do Thuan and some of her friends. They made a sign (wrapped in plastic to protect against the frequent rain that Southern California has been having) that says, “Don’t abuse your freedom of expression! Don’t use Art TO HURT!”

They then posed with that sign next to the controversial photo of the girl in the red-and-yellow-star shirt. For good measure, they also posed with one of Brian Doan’s nude photos, asking him not to use naked bodies to hurt either.

Although small in number, the protestors more than made up for it in persistency. They were at the college once in the morning, then coming back again in the afternoon, only leaving when it started getting dark.

Another meeting was held by Nuygen for yesterday, to plan for another protest tomorrow – which will be something of a last chance to express their feelings because the exhibition is scheduled to end on Saturday.

The OC Register’s Marla Jo Fisher talked to college officials and wrote up a story here.

Do Thuan posted pictures of last week’s protest here and here.

Nuygen has been talking about bringing Viet elected officials along to his protests and meetings. So far, there’s been no takers on that front either.

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