Designing Freedom: Student Art Contest and Reception Showcases Creative Perspectives

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Designing Freedom: Student Art Contest and Reception Showcases Creative Perspectives

Students in digital artwork programs discover what freedom appears to be like like by pictures and design

University News | April 30, 2026

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How do you {photograph} freedom? Can liberty be captured in a single body, or does it dwell within the pressure between picture and interpretation? These questions guided college students in Assistant Professor Derek Eley’s digital artwork and pictures programs this semester, culminating in a robust exhibition and reception that invited the campus neighborhood to see freedom by contemporary eyes.

On April 30, the Robert Nusbaum Center, in partnership with Eley and college students in ART 208 (Photography) and ART 204 (Digital Art), hosted the Designing Freedom pupil artwork contest and reception. The occasion introduced collectively college students, college, and workers to rejoice a semester of artistic inquiry centered on one among society’s most enduring and sophisticated concepts.

Throughout the time period, college students majoring in quite a lot of disciplines have been challenged to visually interpret freedom—its guarantees, contradictions, and lived realities. The ensuing works, spanning pictures and digital design, provided considerate and infrequently provocative views. Some items examined private liberation and id, whereas others explored broader cultural and societal dimensions, prompting viewers to rethink what freedom means in right now’s world.

The reception offered a possibility for attendees to have interaction instantly with the artists, focus on their artistic processes, and replicate on the various interpretations on show. As company seen the exhibition, conversations unfolded across the some ways freedom could be imagined, challenged, and even redesigned.

The competitors highlighted a gaggle of standout pupil artists whose work captured the theme with depth and originality.

Digital Art Semi-Finalists:

• “Untitled” by Nicholas Beatty ’26, a Criminal Justice main from Virginia Beach, Virginia
• “Your Own Wings” by Okay. Donecker ’27, a Media and Communication main from Chesapeake, Virginia
• “Love as Liberation” by Jagger Ogle ’26, a Mathematics/Pre-Engineering main from Chesapeake, Virginia
• “Take It” by Simon Ostern ’29, a Business main from Stockholm, Sweden

Photography Semi-Finalists:

• “No Such Thing as Freedom” by Ella Darcy ’28, a Biology main from Richmond, Virginia
• “The Freedom of Little Wings” by Olivia Knight, a Sustainability Management main from Grimesland, North Carolina
• “A Step Toward Freedom” by Avery Lewis ’26, a Psychology main from Maumee, Ohio
• “Books” by Hovhannes Madanyan ’26, a Business Administration main from Yerevan, Armenia
• “Freedom to Forget” by Katherine Martin ’29, an Art and Education main from Lynchburg, Virginia
• “America’s Pastime” by Mackenzie Swanson ’26, an Allied Health main from Herndon, Virginia

By merging inventive talent with vital reflection, the Designing Freedom exhibition demonstrated the ability of pupil creativity to have interaction with advanced concepts. Through their lenses and screens, these rising artists challenged viewers not solely to see freedom—however to query, outline, and finally reimagine it.