Re-Imagining the Art in the Honors College

The physical environment affects how a person thinks; it tells a story; and it creates a mood. On a college campus the physical environment, including the art on the walls, should actively engage students and faculty and inspire fresh ideas and perspectives. A strong narrative linking visual experience with student and faculty values and goals is an important element in this process. My project illustrates one way such a narrative could be developed. I explored how students and faculty in the Honors College respond to their space, and how the art displayed in the building might best reflect and inspire their understanding of what it means to be a member of a community such as the Honors College. My work involved interviewing students, faculty, and staff; cataloguing the art currently on display in the College; and working with the GVSU Art Gallery Collection to create a proposal that re-imagines, as a thought experiment, new possibilities for active engagement with the space