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Walking Art: DePauw Art Walk from a Student Perspective
The arts are meant to be seen in person versus looking at it through a screen, so what happens when a global pandemic shuts down everything?
You bring the arts to the people.
For DePauw University seniors Elena Collins, Conner Nicoson and Caleb Wiggins this artistic vision brought the DePauw Art Walk, set for its second run on April 29-May 1, to life.
“I had heard of Ellen Reed’s ‘Sound Walk’ in Central Park where you walk through the park, and an app tracks your movement and changes the music as you walk,” Collins said in explaining the inspiration behind the art walk. “I wanted to have music playing as you walk around DePauw, but then we wanted to get other disciplines involved and other mediums, so it involved in an art walk.”
The event idea gained traction as Collins, Nicoson, and Wiggins emailed department heads, staff, and students on campus. As the word spread, student organizations began to get involved.
“It’s all about establishing relationships and connections with people,” Wiggins said. “So if I see someone playing the guitar in Bowman Park, I’ll be like ‘Hey, have you thought of playing for the Art Walk?’”
“We kept Art Walk open to anything. We just said, ‘whatever you do, we can put it in the Art Walk.’” Collins said.
“As Caleb said, it’s all about reaching out to people you do know who do things that they don’t necessarily think is art,” Nicoson said. “It’s trying to be explicit as possible that anything you are doing or making is important to us as an art community.”
Art Walk is getting out to the Greencastle Community by advertising Harmony and tabling in the DePaulloween community event on Halloween. Though mostly DePauw students, faculty, staff and some community members, there is hope for more community involvement in the Art Walk event and the organization of it all.
“The goal is to keep getting the Greencastle community involved, and the hope is to get even more people involved from the Greencastle community,” Nicoson said. “Sometimes DePauw sits outside of the community and not always inside of the community. The reality is we are all here, and it would be wrong of us not to include people doing cool things that are not necessarily at DePauw, but close to DePauw.”
“We are leaving Art Walk with the structure to be an event that will be put on next year,” Collins said. “I hope that on the Art Walk planning board that there will be students, faculty and community members or anybody else who wants to be on that board and be a community event going forward.”
“This model we have been working on for this Art Walk could be successfully transplanted to other universities or other communities as an aspect of live music and supporting the arts in general. That is the hope through our Art Walk.” Wiggins says.
With Art Walk mostly being virtual in its debut and a bit more community engagement in 2021, the seniors hope for an even better Art Walk 2022.
“Organizationally, we did a lot of work last year to establish credibility,” Nicoson said. “This year, we scheduled a lot of time for student-led groups on campus to get involved, too, so we have pushed and made a lot of connections with student groups and organizations.”
“We’ll have the ability to host more people than last year,” Wiggins says. “We’ll have more community engagement and more openness in saying, ‘We can host a community in Greencastle and DePauw, together.’ It’s going to be great for everyone involved.”
“There will be a wide variety of arts, performances, and collaborations, so there will be so much going on between April 29 and May 1,” Collins says.
As they leave DePauw University, the hopes for the Art Walk will live on with hopefully more involvement from the community in the Art Walk planning committee and involvement in the art walk.
Anyone wanting more information may contact dpuartwalk@gmail.com or visit www.dpuartwalk.com.