Illustration & Design, 3D animation, Photography, and Fine Art faculty and students went to NYC March 12 – 15/16, 2016. We visited many museums and also other venues specifically targeted for our students. Amongst some were, the MOMA, Metropolitan, American Museum of Natural History, The Frick, Guggenheim, Art and Design, Whitney, Museum of Brooklyn, and the Society of Illustrators. This year the students and faculty of Illustration  & Design added the Museum of Moving Images to the museum list. This was definitely a hit amongst our students and will be a “must go to” in future trips.

We also visited a host of art galleries in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) and in the Chelsea, Soho, Tribeca areas of NYC. These institutions offered an assortment of focused exhibitions of works of art. Our students were exposed to both historical and contemporary visual arts, contemporary illustration, and computation arts.

Don Corman, (Photography professor) launched a Facebook contest with the Photography and Fine Arts students which really captured the spirit and feel of what the students and faculty were experiencing. This proved to be a great way to document our excursion. Don, along with other faculty members, chose daily winners and treated the winners to breakfast at a local NYC diner.

Students  came to appreciate innovative ideas organized within a curatorial context. The intention was to engage them in critically looking at formation and production, the organization of subject matter, and the intellectual or emotional content which resonated in a given work once it is experienced in vivo.

Another equally important element relative to the trip had to do with cultivating the whole person / student entity. The dynamics of bonding between each other and with the instructors cannot be underestimated especially for those who need to develop their inter-personal skills. In a relaxed setting, as one would expect in a discipline-related field trip, I have noticed after having been part of now 4 consecutive trips, (every other year) an optimum rise in motivational levels, personal worth and confidence in their creative development.

We seeked to encourage students in becoming outgoing to travel abroad for the purpose of acquiring knowledge, to value cultural diversity over cultural differences while respecting opinions of others and to manage interpersonal relationships and become accountable for their decisions, and overall the students had an amazing experience.

Students attended the exhibitions and visited permanent collections. Students documented their experiences in written and visual form by answering a questionnaire, and also by posting photos of their experiences on a closed facebook group. Students documented their experience in written and visual form and were directed to extrapolate this experience in an assigned task relative to their practice.