Presentations by students and faculty in UCF’s School of Visual Arts & Design – fine art, tableau vivant (living art), films, interactive gaming and other fields – will expand to multiple venues in this year’s UCF Celebrates the Arts.
In addition to art presentations at the host site of the April 7-14 festival, the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, for the first time three other galleries within a short walking distance will display a variety of visual arts. All the events are free, but entry to the Dr. Phillips Center requires an event ticket or lobby pass.
“This is a great opportunity for our students to show their creative works to their friends, families and the Orlando community,” said Rudy McDaniel, assistant dean of the College of Arts & Humanities. “So much academic work is done in the classroom or studio, which often means a much more limited audience to the work. In this environment, though, you never know who might see the work, which can be both sobering and liberating to our students.”
Here’s what SVAD has scheduled for the eight-day festival.
Multi-media “Multiples” Exhibit (ongoing exhibit at Dr. Phillips) – Conceptual visual art pieces will be on display throughout the center.
Banner Art and Arcade Games (ongoing exhibit at Dr. Phillips) – This year’s lobby banners display examples of animation, architecture, ceramics, drawing, design, digital media, film, graphic art, painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and mixed media. The interactive games by SVAD game-design students are housed in custom-built classic arcade cabinets and will be available for patrons to play.
In the Eyes of the Hungry: Florida’s Changing Landscape (ongoing exhibit at Terrace Gallery at Orlando City Hall, 400 S. Orange Ave.) – Selected works provide responses to Florida’s landscape and explore ideas including agriculture, industrialization, migration, tourism, ecology and conservation. The art presents images of Florida’s unique and changing landscape. This exhibit is in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts’ annual community book-reading project, which this year features John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
A Memory Wingding: Nostalgia and Ephemera in UCF Undergraduate Fine Art (ongoing exhibit at City Arts Factory, 29 S. Orange Ave.) – This exhibition features the paintings, photography, and sculpture of eight artists from UCF’s undergraduate Bachelor of Fine Arts program, all of whom work on “the aesthetics of remembrance in psychologically charged spaces.”
Without Borders (ongoing exhibit at Gallery at Avalon Island, 39 S. Magnolia Ave.) – This exhibit features painting, video, sound, sculpture, photography, and performance art in unique perspective by artists from diverse cultural and ideological backgrounds. This show explores identity, perception, blackness, feminism, gender roles and interactivity.
Tableau vivant (5:30 April 7 and 6:30 p.m. April 8 at Dr. Phillips) – 3-D art students and instructors team up to present costumed models who pose with backdrops of famous works of art.
Go Far with a Degree in the Arts (3-5 p.m. April 9 at Dr. Phillips) – A panel of UCF alumni will discuss their career paths after graduation. Speaking about the use of technology and what it takes to be successful will be the vice president of design at ETSY, a Disney animator, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and an entrepreneur.
Digital Media Showcase (6 to 9 p.m. April 11 at Dr. Phillips) – A presentation of some of UCF’s most innovative interactive media projects. Patrons can experience dozens of games and creative projects designed and developed by game design, web design, and emerging media management undergraduate students.
Character Animation Film Showcase (1:30 to 2:45 p.m. April 12 at Dr. Phillips) – A variety of student-created animations from the past five years will be screened.
Short Film Showcase (8 p.m. April 12 at Dr. Phillips) – A curated lineup of films featuring narrative, documentary and experimental shorts.
“What I love about this festival is that it provides great opportunity for creative artists and practitioners to cohabitate a space – performers with studio artists, interactive media designers with musicians,” McDaniel said. “To me, this embodies what celebrating the arts should truly be about – not just recognizing the contributions of each individual discipline, but also appreciating the interplay between disciplines and the potential for innovation when you bring the fine and performing arts together with design and technology.”
The SVAD offerings are some of the many events to be presented at the third annual UCF Celebrates the Arts, which is free and open to the public.
More than 1,000 university students, 100 faculty members and some collaborative programs with outside partners will showcase theatre, dance, orchestra, choirs, big band, chamber music, cabaret, concert bands, opera, visual arts, studio art, gaming, animation, photography and film.
This is part of a series of stories about the April 7-14 events at UCF Celebrates the Arts 2017. All events are free, but tickets are required for performances and entrance into the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave., Orlando. Ticketing and full schedule details are posted at https://arts.cah.ucf.edu/.
