Art students spread out across campus with inflatable art to share messages of environmentalism and relaxation.

Students displayed a wave meant to represent ocean pollution and displayed a snow globe to encourage students to de-stress.

The sculptures were projects from the creative collaboration class and were worked on since the beginning of the semester. It required students to come up with the concept, decide where it will be displayed and create meaning behind it. 

“It gets them to think critically about how art can interact with the public and how we can work together to make really interesting sculptures,” said Lydia Dildilian, assistant professor of painting. 

Both sculptures were made of painters plastic and were fused together using an iron. 

The snow globe, outside the Fine Arts Center, had to fit at least eight people. The globe had fabric to represent snow, as well as snowflakes, inside. Students were encouraged to stop by and take pictures inside it.

“We wanted to have people take a break just for a second. It kind of takes your breath away,” said Katelyn Hampton, a first-year radiology major from Jonesboro. “It’s a way to interact with the community and get people to have a little fun in between classes.”

The wave was near the Windgate Center for Three-Dimensional Arts. Students filled the wave with trash collected from across campus. The students also placed a QR code on the sculpture with information about ocean pollution. 

“We filled up the wave with trash to represent how the oceans fill up with trash,” said Athena Gentry, a junior art education major from Cherokee Village. “There’s not enough people that know about it. If there was enough work put into it, it could be at least somewhat reversed.”

Dildilian said this project benefited both the art students involved, as well as the campus community. 

“It brings together what we do here as an art department,” Dildilian said. “We’re thinking about complex problems. We’re also thinking about introducing disciplinary practices and how we can be at the forefront for thinking critically about education and how we disseminate that to our students.”

Brief by Rachel Rudd | Editor-in-Chief

Anna Cox, sports editor, contributed to this report

Categories: News