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四色AV commemorates new public art sculpture

Published August 28, 2024

Here We Go

CAPTION:Scott Finch (left) and April Baham (right) from Percent for Art speak at the commemoration of Here We Go, a new public art sculpture adjacent to Sandel Hall.


MONROE, LA 鈥 The University of Louisiana Monroe held a press conference on August 21, 2024, to commemorate the installation of a new public art sculpture on its campus. The sculpture, titled听Here We Go,听was created by Kansas City artist Beth Nybeck. The 12-foot-tall steel sculpture听has been installed next to Sandel Hall on Northeast Drive.

Speakers at the press conference included Scott Finch, the Director of Percent for Art, and April Baham, Project Manager for Percent for Art, the program听whose funding made the sculpture possible. Other speakers included 四色AV Vice President for Enrollment Management and University Relations Lisa Miller, 四色AV President Dr. Ron Berry, and Director of the 四色AV School of Visual and Performing Arts Dr. Nicholas Bratcher.听

Here We Go incorporates handwritten responses by 四色AV students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members. Participants responded to the prompt 鈥淚 am going to ______鈥 and were encouraged to fill in the blank with their future aspirations or goals striving towards personal, professional, or global impact. Nybeck collected the responses in 2022 and 2023. The sculpture is created by many stacked layers of text taken from participants鈥 responses to the prompt.

Nybeck says she collected hundreds of responses. 鈥淭he form is a human head which is indicative of education. Every statement is reflective of a person or many people who wrote similar responses,鈥 said Nybeck.

鈥淧art of my process in creating public art is creating an element of community engagement. Instead of having a reflection of just my voice, it becomes a reflection of the community,鈥 said Nybeck.

"The reason I fell in love with public art was that I want for my own life to have a lot of inclusion. 听I think a successful piece of public art wakens us up and gets us to think about things differently,鈥 added Nybeck.

The piece has been made possible thanks to the state鈥檚 Percent for Art Program. For more than 20 years, the Percent for Art law reserves one percent of state money to be invested in public art when more than $2 million in state funds is spent by a state agency for newly constructed or renovated state buildings. The funds for Here We Go came specifically from the Sandel Hall renovation project, which was completed in 2016. A committee of university stakeholders selected Nybeck鈥檚 proposal from a pool of 64 applicants after a call for art.

Click to view a video of Beth Nybeck describing the sculpture and its installation.

Nybeck