While photographing the campus, I found the architecture to be very static, repetitive and dismissal. This caused me to reflect on the social atmosphere I felt that I had experienced, over my years at UW. Although the university is intended to be a place of growth, innovation and inspiration, it has actually felt almost like an obstacle that was to be overcome. The university as a campus, is very segregated and unified, however it does so in an almost monotonous way. The campus seems void of organic, inspirational elements and there appears to be no planned flow to the constantly expanding layout of the campus.
After experiencing the space of the campus, I was inspired to create two story cubes, one that functioned simply as a narrative of the patterns and repetitive elements on campus. The other was more reflective of my own reaction to the social atmosphere within the university as a whole. I use the outer surfaces of the cube to depict the university itself, as an enclosure, by using photographs of the actual walls I found on the campus. These walls also carry on the idea of repetitive patterns on the campus. The top of the cube instructs the viewer to open the cube. Inside the cube is filled with words and phrases, expressing my reaction to the confining feeling created within the university.
My cube is intended to lead the viewer in experience the confining feeling that is a common student experience on the UW campus.
by Jillian Louise Scout
