A new art installation will be coming to TCNJ Art Gallery from Wednesday, Nov. 8 through Friday, Dec. 8, all of which will be created by students. The new art exhibition will premiere work made by fine art, interactive multimedia, and music students, which integrates image, movement and sound to create an immersive environment.
The class, which is cross-listed in the Departments of Art & Art History, Design and Creative Technology, and Music, is co-taught by Professor of Fine Art & Photography/Video Elizabeth Mackie, and Professor of Music, Design and Creative Technology Teresa Nakra. This is the first time this class has run, and the two professors wanted to introduce their students to a new, nonlinear way of thinking. They gave their students the theme of transformation for the gallery, giving creative freedom of how to incorporate image, movement, and sound into a transformative piece.
To help the students get started, the professors took the class on a field trip to Governors Island, New York. There, they visited the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to explore artists’ use of sound and other elements in their work, which served as inspiration for the students.
One student, junior psychology major and fine arts and public health minor Jules Boyle, is crocheting a dress out of recycled plastic. She is collaborating with an IMM student to work on color projection to change the color of the gown.
“The goal of the class overall is to create a cohesive gallery exhibit with people from different majors and different preferred mediums of working in. Some people are very tech-focused and some people are a lot more art-focused. Some people want to do both and some people want to do music,” Boyle said. “A big part of it was like, ‘How do we bring everything together to create something that’s visually interesting and exciting?’”
Another student, senior fine arts major Michaela Moran, is also using recycled materials like fabric in her project, after some students realized the idea of recycling being similar to the theme of transformation. As her project includes sound and movement elements, she encourages the audience to engage with the piece.
“I am going to encourage people to interact with it and transform it from a viewer’s perspective and play with it. I think that’d be really cool to see people transforming it itself, because that’s a whole other aspect of a gallery that you have to think about when you’re making work,” Moran said. “You have this art and it’s meaningful, but then people are going to be there. And that transforms the space itself. So how are they going to do that? And what is it going to be like for them?”
During its time in the gallery, the exhibition will also host a number of performances from student musicians and artists. On Wednesday, Nov. 8, on the opening night, a guitar ensemble will perform. On Thursday, Nov. 16, performances will include spoken word presentations about the Harlem Renaissance, a vocalist, and jazz piano. The TCNJ Chorale will perform on Monday, Nov. 20, with two more performances taking place on Monday, Nov. 27 and Friday, Dec. 8 at ArtsComm After Dark.
-Grace Murphy ’26