Jam out at this new student-made Museum London exhibit

Imagine a band where the musicians are not playing instruments, but are playing a couch, table and chair. That's what students from a Strathroy, Ont., high school have created at a new Museum London exhibit. 

The Living Room Jam Sesh features five pieces of furniture that double as fully-functional musical instruments, such as a guitar coffee table and harp chair — and visitors to the museum are encouraged to try them out.

"I would like people to come and realize they can play something," said recent Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School graduate Claire Vander Kant, who worked on the project. "It doesn't have to be hard. It can be really simple and it can sound amazing."

Vander Kant was one of the students who built the harp chair, which is a green chair with harp-shaped armrests on each side. Instead of strings, the harps have metal rods, Vander Kant said, which are coded to play a selection of notes that even the least-musical visitors can play a tune on. 

"The notes are all in an open G chord, like they would be on a guitar, so any note that anyone plays will sound good together," she said.

Her younger sister, Annie Vander Kant, also worked on the project and said the most rewarding part has been seeing the instruments in action.

"I think it's awesome because when we were here on opening night, everyone was playing a bunch of the instruments together and it sounded really cool," she said. 

The project was a year-long collaboration between more than 30 art and technology students, and six teachers across departments, alongside Museum London.

"The students actually suggested this and we were looking for projects that brought together art and music," Museum London curator of education Devon Elliott said.

When students at Holy Cross visited Museum London before the project, Elliott said, they learned about the city's designation as a UNESCO City of Music and saw instruments made by London's Nihilist Spasm Band, which influenced the project.

The exhibit, which is built in the shape of a living room, also features student artwork on the walls.

"My students in the senior art class focused for months on asking, 'What does the living room space mean? What does it mean to feel at home? What does it mean to feel cozy?'" said Amber O'Callaghan, the teacher who oversaw the project. 

Many of the students wanted to create pieces inspired by their own cultural heritage, she said, then had to figure out the best way to make it fit a mid-century modern living room style.

"A living room is not going to have just one kind of artwork. It's not going to have just one kind of thing on the wall," O'Callaghan said, adding that the student artwork includes paintings, drawings and ceramics. 

With the exhibit now open at Museum London until the end of August, the Vander Kant sisters said they want Londoners to make some noise when they check it out over the summer.

"I want people to take away that music is for everyone," Annie Vander Kant said. "You don't have to know anything about music. When you hear it, you'll know that it sounds great and you can just make up random stuff on the spot. It doesn't even matter if you know how to play."