A course projection event outside the Rec Center.
The project included using research methods to collect student opinion data of Rowan University’s public art. In addition, this IRB-approved project allowed the team to interview campus community members, collecting non-identifying demographics and opinions of Rowan University’s public art. The data includes recommendations for what community members would like included in future public art and where they would site their imagined public art on campus. The students also explored how projection mapping technology activates public space and encourages more dynamic survey responses. This data was shared with University Planning. Over two semesters, students collected approximately 900 surveys and participated in four campus projection mapping events.
Project Goals
- Initiate public dialogue and exploration of Rowan University’s public art
- Collect data about how the campus public views Rowan University’s public art
- Collect proposals of what the public would like to see included in Rowan University’s public art
- Contribute to the public awareness of Rowan University’s commitment to creative endeavors, the arts, and the community
- Develop tools and best practices that can be used to gather public opinion data concerning University-owned public art
- Explore opportunities to share tools, methods, best practices, and findings
- Explore the application of projection mapping as place-based pedagogy for creative and inclusive placemaking
- Develop a unique, real-world learning experience for students within the Urban Geography course
- Elevate awareness of the Campbell Library Digital Scholarship Center’s Public Art Project
- Inspire and develop new community creative projects.
- Explore and inspire grant funding opportunities that stimulate new campus plans and initiatives.
Project Background
The Projecting Future Public Art course project is modeled after a Philadelphia Mural Arts program project called the Monument Lab, which encourages the public to explore “history, memory, and our collective future” through participatory opportunities and temporary public art installations. The Projecting Future Public Art project explored similar ideas on the campus to collect public opinion data of Rowan University’s public art collection. The project invited community members to depict future artwork themes (or nominate specific artists) that they identify with as a way to close a representational gap in our existing public art collection (e.g. more diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds of the artists to represent the diverse composition of our campus population, more art that deals with medical achievements to represent the medical professions at Rowan, etc.). The survey data was shared with University Planning.
This project originated from receiving a Rowan University Innovations in Teaching Using Technology Grant awarded by the Faculty Center to Jen Kitson in Fall 2017. Titled “From Projection Mapping to Creative Placemaking: Visualizing Urban and Environmental History in Place,” this project utilized “projection mapping” technology as place-based urban pedagogy in geography, planning, and sustainability. Projection (video) mapping refers to projected video content onto 3D objects, surfaces, or environments. In “augmenting reality” of everyday sidewalks, building exteriors, and public spaces through digital projections, this technology has a tremendous capacity to tell experiential, site-specific stories in and through the built environment. Projection mapping technology will be a medium for students to research, design, and narrate urban and environmental history in public space. Importantly, this technology can tell stories about a specific place through the place—to utilize the built environs in communicating an otherwise invisible past, present, or future.
Collaborate on a Public Art course project or research
If you would like to develop a course project with the Rowan University Libraries Public Art Project please visit the Digital Scholarship Center at https://libguides.rowan.edu/DSC.
Explore additional course engagement with Rowan’s Public Art Project: Visit Engagement