Art doesn't just happen in a studio.
Each spring, the parks and plazas, the schools, shopping districts, and community centers of University City – Washington University's neighbor to the north – fill with public, site-specific works by art students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
For students, the University City Sculpture Project has become a rite of passage, a chance to explore the social aspects and civic responsibilities of being an artist. Since the project's inception in the fall of 1986, more than 200 students, 17 professors, 4 deans, 2 chancellors, 60 commission members and 2 mayors have collaborated on it.
Participants gain valuable, hands-on experience. They choose locations, estimate costs, and design models. They make professional presentations before the city's Municipal Commission on Arts & Letters. Winning projects – funded by the city and the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis – are constructed, installed, and unveiled.
For local residents, the Sculpture Project is virtually synonymous with springtime – an annual eruption of creativity by students turns whimsical and provocative, earnest and satiric, humorous and deeply felt.
