Making Art in Wild Places

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Photo: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

LAST SPRING, students studying music, video, theater and visual arts took a walk in the woods. When they came out, their creative spirits were infused with the sounds, textures, shapes and colors of the Hopkins Demonstration Forest.

Music student Ryan Zubieta listened to the sounds around him — water running over stones, branches clicking together, wind rattling the canopy — then recorded and edited them, finally converting them into a haunting piece of music that, he says, “retains the organic quality” of the original woodland sounds.

“Student projects involved not only sound capture but also acting and directing, video documentation, drawing and sculpture,” says Charles Robinson, a faculty member in the College of Liberal Arts.

The interdisciplinary “Creative Forest Project” of the School of Arts & Communication was recast this year as the “Creative Coast Project.” In April and May, students ventured to Cape Perpetua, where faculty members led workshops and then set the students loose in groups to create writings, films, music and plays.  The partnership also includes the National Park Service team at Cape Perpetua, Oregon Sea Grant and OSU Extension.