It was 6:45 p.m. on a Thursday. In the fourth row of SLU-Madrid’s dimly-lit auditorium, a student unzipped her backpack and pulled out a bottle of red wine. She held it by the neck and took a long sip before handing it over to her friend, who did the same. Simultaneously, a student onstage cleared his throat against a microphone.
“I had three hotdogs for lunch today,” he said. Cheers erupted around the room.
It was Convivium Magazine’s first open mic of the Spring 2025 semester. The arts collective, which publishes student-made written and visual work on their website and annual print edition, hosts between two and three of these events every term, welcoming anyone who wants to share stories, poems, music, or even visual art onstage. Students can share their own work or works by authors they appreciate. Many come just to watch.
Convivium has hosted events in conjunction to several clubs on campus, like the Latine Student Union. On the cold afternoon of February 6th, the open mic was hosted in collaboration with the Black and African Student Union (BASU), in celebration of the beginning of Black History Month.
Neveah García, vice-president of BASU, kicked off the event by thanking the audience for being there, and encouraging them to take Black History Month as an opportunity to educate themselves and others on the importance of diversity.
“Difference is what makes us special, and what makes us individual,” she said.
Around 25 students sat sprinkled around the auditorium’s fold out chairs, listening attentively. Santi Aguila, who has been president of Convivium since Spring of 2024, came onstage once García was done.
“Who wants to share first?” he asked into the microphone, raising an eyebrow towards the audience. After some seconds of silence, he spoke again.
“I like to think of the open mic as more for the people sharing than for the people watching. This is your chance to say whatever you want, with no judgement.”
Murmurs echoed around the room. Students flipped through journals and looked at each other nervously. One leaned towards her friend, swiping through a note on her phone.
“Should I share this?” she asked. “It just gives me social anxiety, but I really want to share.”
Finally, a student in the second row stood up, climbing over the chairs in front of them to reach the stage. The audience clapped, then quieted down as they took the microphone and began to recite a poem about Seashells, the Church, and North Carolina.
Once the ice was broken, students spent the next hour taking easy turns walking on and off stage. One shared his experience opening a bank account when he first moved to Madrid. Another recounted the time she got catcalled while walking home from a club. Many held cans of beer purchased at the San Ignacio Hall cafeteria. Jazz music played in the background.
In an interview after the event, Aguila emphasized the importance of open mics as a cathartic space on campus. Complete freedom, he said, is what makes them work.
“The fact that it’s ‘whatever you want’ makes people want to come and do something.”
Students have used open mics as a place to share their creative work through many mediums; anywhere from paintings to written-down dreams, to, most recently, music. It has been a priority for Aguila since he stepped into the role of president to incorporate instruments and songs into the open mic dynamic.
“We can’t print music in our yearly magazine, so I want to encourage it this way,” he said.
For the last year, there’s been guitars and amplifiers on stage at every Convivium open mic, available for anyone who wants to play a song. Another addition for future events will be printed-out poems, handed out to the audience for anyone who wants to share but didn’t come with anything prepared.
Convivium also hopes to continue hosting open mics in collaboration with other student-led clubs, in order to create spaces where different cultures and identities are celebrated.
“A lot of people [participate in open mics] to have their voices heard,” said Aguila. “When you’re doing it for a specific purpose, it gives more focus to certain groups without taking away from anyone else.”
The goal of it all is to generate a sense of belonging.
“There’s a lot of creative people on this campus, and we don’t get the chance to share our work with each other very often,” he said. “Open mics give people the space to do that.”
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