On Friday, Nov. 8, University of Massachusetts student George Adams held the opening ceremony for his exhibit ‘WIRE-LESS’ in the Student Union Art Gallery.

“I was overcome with happiness and just love for everyone that showed up, especially my family and friends,” Adams said.

Adams is a senior Creative Direction major, a major he designed through the university’s Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration program (BDIC).

WIRE-LESS examines, as Adams’ event description states, “a world saturated by technology where social media and constant stimulation shape our lives”, inviting attendees to “pause, reflect, and return to the joy of being present.”

The exhibit will be held in the Student Union Art Gallery through Nov. 26.

“I thought it was very cool, very creative,” Cliff Virgile, a sophomore operations and information management major said. “It made me think about how I consume my time on technology.”

Adams describes the event as “a reflection on creativity, distraction and human connection.”

‘It does feel like a capstone,” Adams said. “It feels like a great way to celebrate all the different ways that I have been creative at UMass, and how my life has shifted away from being more susceptible to distractions.”

 After the last portion of the exhibit, the end allows attendees to add their own drawings centered around the prompt “How does technology shape your daily life?”

“The idea was to cast technology as this overstimulating, noisy, disorienting force, and then have this moment where you exit the space into a more peaceful breath of fresh air,” Adams said.

 “I really enjoyed that self-reflection,” Beatrice Rogers, a junior psychology and holistic health (BDIC) major said. “I think art is a very reflective practice, so when you end with something that pulls you back to yourself, you incorporate the viewer and invite them into that reflection. It’s much more impactful.”

Adams invites attendees to “explore his own journey,” and the walls of the exhibit are lined with Adams’ personal photos, writings and drawings.

“Overall, I wanted to portray how well documented, or overly documented, my life has been,” Adams said. Having that context with the family photos, where my brothers and I are on the Christmas card every year growing up; that felt like a great way to build a connection with the viewer.”

The exhibit also highlights some of Adams’ own struggles with distraction, such as excessive video gaming and an addiction to marijuana.

On this addiction being a part of the exhibit, Adams said “I’m just trying to put it all out there. I feel like there’s no reason to avoid talking about it, and hopefully the vulnerability can be reciprocated by other people that want to share as well.”

Featured throughout the exhibit were pieces of Adams’ clothing brand, Midbloom, which he started at the start of his sophomore year after a gap semester. Adams has designed two collections featuring pieces like embroidered hoodies and crewnecks, as well as screen-printed tees and sweatpants.

The leisurewear brand has become a weekly staple at UMass Student Farmers Markets and is now sold at the new X-Change Thrift and Consignment store in Amherst.

Adams was motivated to start the brand as a way to explore his passion for content creation.

“I wanted to start a business and then have videos and content creation be the marketing,” Adams said. “It was not really about the clothing, but more about the creativity and learning that I could experience, and the people I could bring together in the process.”

The Midbloom Instagram account, which posts photoshoots and other content creation to promote the brand, has generated roughly 1,574 followers.

Adams is proud of Midbloom’s brand awareness. “I took the bus once, and the only other guy at the bus stop was wearing a Midbloom hat. Going around campus and seeing people wearing the clothes feels like an incredible thing, and an indicator that I’m doing something right,” Adams said.

Adams credits part of Midbloom’s success to Austin Henry, who he met at one of the Student Farmer’s Markets last fall. Henry, a sophomore English major, ran the brand at those markets when Adams studied abroad last spring.

“My friend Austin has been a secondhand man,” Adams said. “He kept the momentum alive when I went abroad, and people started to associate Midbloom with him. It was really cool to see that the brand doesn’t just have to do with me.”

“My experience working with George has been nothing short of extremely valuable,” Henry said. “Midbloom is all about blooming creativity and being within the creative process, and I think this reflects George’s ambitions very well.”

Ultimately, the Midbloom brand is about building a stronger community on campus for Adams.

“At UMass there’s so many creative people, and so many people that want to be creative but maybe don’t know how to,” Adams said. “Midbloom is a way to bring people together and orient connections around creativity.”

George Coulouras can be reached at [email protected].