ROBIN RUSNAK
key art specialist | fine art photographer
2015 - 2016
The Pink Panther, The Plex, Hotel California, Gains Palace, The Fortress, Frat Castle, The Frateau, The Gent, The Empire, and The Igloo—these are the names given to the houses that housed the proud members of Arizona State University’s Fraternities. They resided in places like master-leased apartment complexes, a former motel, and multiple houses that border the Tempe campus, accommodating anywhere from four to forty-five members. These thirteen brotherhoods held approximately 100 members each, testing the steadfast persistence of groups of men living an infamously crazy lifestyle. I noticed that there is an aspect of this lifestyle most do not witness, specifically, the party aftermath the men wake up to (also known as the ‘Greek ruins’), the complexity of college men and their path of transition into manhood, and the ruthless adaptive quality these men obtained to make their college experience one to remember. I found that in the quieter and more mundane moments, the human aspect of these places came to light. The way the figures lay in the arms of the interiors challenges my question of whether these places have been defined as a kind of home to these men or if these places have just been subdued to another ruin along the path of the fraternity man’s existence. I think it’s safe to say the fraternities of Arizona State are showing these residences a type of living their developers never thought they would endure.