When the administration of Woodsworth College took down Oriel Varga’s painting about university life, they might not have known what they were getting themselves into.

The 5 x 20-foot painting was put up in an unadorned hallway of the college from September 21 until around last Wednesday, when it was suddenly taken down. It now sits in the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students’ (APUS) office in the Sid Smith building, and APUS and the student government of Woodsworth are circulating a petition to have the painting remounted in the college.

“I don’t know why it was taken down; students were very interested in looking at it and lots of them were talking about it,” said Varga, a graduate student at OISE. Varga also works part-time for APUS, which has come out in favour of reinstating the painting. APUS holds most of its meetings at Woodsworth, which is home to many of the university’s part-time students.

“It was disappointing to see that a college that was founded to serve non-traditional students, to make this university more accessible has taken this move against student voices,” Varga explained.

“We were very surprised when it was taken down since this painting was fundamentally students talking about their own university.”

The colourful acrylic painting, entitled “Speaking Back to the Walls,” depicts five men wearing suits, deliberating over a map of the St. George campus. The painting is meant to draw attention to the decision-making process at the university that Varga said she considers overly hierarchal and unresponsive to community needs.

Varga, who describes the work as “student commissioned,” was inspired to create the piece after serving for a year as a graduate student representative on the governing council, the university’s highest deliberative body, in the 2004-2005 year.

Serving on the governing council was sobering experience for Varga. For her, it underscored just how unrepresentative the administration is of U of T’s student body.

“The Free University of Toronto offered a much better vision [than U of T] of what universities should do,” continued Varga. The Free University of Toronto was started in 1999 and offers classes free of charge. She contrasted the community ethic of the free university with the corporate, hierarchal decision-making system in place at U of T.

Jeff Peters, vice president internal of APUS, also spoke in praise of the art project.

“I thought it was an excellent painting. It was disappointing to see it removed. Clearly this administration does not care about student voices,” said Peters.

“APUS is interested in the painting since it addresses the inequities present in this university, the top-down decision making, which is very problematic,” continued Peters.

APUS will continue collecting signatures for its petition requesting that Woodsworth remount the painting, until next week. If Woodsworth does not allow the painting to be shown on its walls, it won’t stop Varga. She’s already looking for other venues at the university to give it a home.