An Emergence of Art

The warm glow of the sun off the Mojave Desert sand softens the large wooden structure that emerges from the landscape. It’s a beautiful geometric sculpture, fluid yet intentional. Named Emergence, the installation is the work of the Art Builds collective, a group of University of San Diego academics from the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences. 

Appearing at the 2021 Everywhen Project Festival in the California desert, the installation art piece was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. For Art Builds collaborators and USD professors Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Diane Hoffoss, Gordon Hoople and Nate Parde, this project was uniquely themed to address the current environment we live in and the constraints brought on by the global health crisis.

“The inspiration for this piece came from the fact that the whole planet is in a weird in-between time,” says Choi-Fitzpatrick, a USD University Professor in the Kroc School. “The pandemic has constricted so much, but after that is a new opening.”

For Parde, an assistant professor of theatre, the project was intentionally designed with USD students to work within pandemic restrictions.

“The prompt for the students was to create something that could be built onsite,” he says. “Because of all the uncertainty around COVID, we thought a ‘grab stuff from Home Depot on the way to the event’ project would be a useful one to pursue.”

The design, a structure with larger hexagonal sides and a smaller tunnel in the middle, was built to be explored and enjoyed by festival participants. 

Hoffoss, a professor of mathematics, puts it this way. “A visitor will really have to crouch down through an uncomfortable tight spot when walking through Emergence, but there is relief in passing through to the other side,” she says. “I hope the piece will inspire the visitors to reflect on the relief they will feel as we all come out of this difficult experience, and to contemplate who we will be and who we want to be when we emerge.”

After months of planning, the wooden sculpture took form in a matter of hours in the desert sand.

“It was elating to see the piece come to life,” says Hoffoss. “It gives a much stronger feeling as a large-scale installation than as a computer rendering. The best thing about having it installed out here in the desert has been seeing people interacting with the artwork. An art piece that is a physical experience invites participation and allows the visitor to connect in a more visceral way. The look of joy on the faces of the people coming out of the tunnel has been awesome.”

A beautiful addition to the Everywhen festival, perhaps what is most inspiring about the art sculpture is the interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty and students that made the desert installation possible.

“Projects like this are critical to the liberal arts mission of the university,” says Hoople, an assistant professor of integrated engineering. “Giving students the chance to work at the intersection of art, engineering and the social sciences not only expands knowledge, but prepares our future leaders to think about the multifaceted nature of the challenges facing society today.”

Bringing together academics and students on Art Builds projects has been the collective’s mission for the past few years. Founded in 2019, the group intentionally combines seemingly disparate disciplines in projects that redefine what interactive art means.

Commissioned by the city of San Diego to create public park installations and appearing at Burning Man for the past few years, the Art Builds collective seeks to encourage exploration and the interconnectivity of knowledge.

“Pieces like this provide a unique opportunity for us to synthesize across disciplines,” says Parde. “If this piece was pure engineering with no aesthetic, it would fail. If it were purely aesthetics with no engineering, it would fail. It requires collaboration across disciplines to exist.”

For the faculty members, the interdisciplinary approach helps connect the university community and its scholars, adding to lifelong learning that begins on USD’s campus.

“One of my favorite parts of our collective, Art Builds, is that it brings together members from all across campus. Without this group, my days would be spent working with engineering students in engineering classes,” says Hoople. “These projects give me a chance to think bigger and bring together ideas from scholars all across campus.”

For Choi-Fitzpatrick, it’s also about getting art out of the galleries and into the real world, which, for him, is “a liberal arts approach at its best — working across disciplines to serve the public.”

With no plans to slow down, the Art Builds collaborators are looking forward to new ways they can showcase interdisciplinary partnerships in interactive installations that redefine what art is. 

— Allyson Meyer ’16 (BA), ’21 (MBA)