About Creative Encounter
Purpose
Encounter: Encountering university is an impactful approach to demystifying university for communities who may not have experienced university or may have experienced university elsewhere. This project will curate encounters between UC community and the broader community.
Storytelling: the employment of public art will speak to future students as well as past alumni about UC’s values of inclusion for all everyone. Storytelling is a powerful medium through which we learn about each other.
Creativity: the mural design will be inspired by the communities that make UC what it is. Everyone's invited to contribute, and you don't have to be an artist!
Our Team
Creative Encounter is the brain child of five UC students and staff. Believing in the power of art and creativity to bring community together and create vibrant physical spaces, they developed a mural project to do just that! They come from a range of professional backgrounds and they're just a great bunch of people (if we do say so ourselves!).
The Project
Leveraging existing expertise and partnerships, the Creative Encounter Project is a co-designed mural project which will create connections through a collaboration between the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Art and Design and Student Equity and Participation team.
The artist’s brief is to develop a vibrant and welcoming design that reflects the sentiments of the community who contributed responses to the prompt 'what does home mean to you?' We are very excited to be working with Khadim Ali on this project. Khadim is an exceptionally talented and passionate artist whose work borrows from a range of artistic traditions. You can find out more about Khadim and see some of his works here.
The mural will be painted with community in the UC Refectory and then transported to its permanent home outside building 20 - the Faculty of Art and Design. The position of the mural means it can be seen and enjoyed by the entire campus. During a community day, UC community and their partners and schools can come on campus to help paint the mural, with the artist on hand to guide. The mural will be launched during Refugee Week 2024.
What does 'home' mean to you?
Community and UC staff and student responses to the prompt ‘what does home mean to you’, will be collected through school visits, student engagement activities on campus and through partner community organisations. These responses will be collated and provided to a commissioned artist who will develop a mural design.
To help capture these responses, twenty one students in years 7-12 from Dickson Secondary Introductory English Centre designed artworks demonstrating their aspirations. The artworks were then professionally photographed by Dr Emma Phillips and printed as postcards. 1000 postcards with the prompt have been seeded throughout ACT and NSW communities, including The Multicultural Hub; ACT ED schools; Uni Canberra's regional connections, and UC courses; MARSS, and Cafe Stepping Stone. The postcard responses will contribute ideas towards the mural design.
You can contribute a response too!