December 9, 2004
Memorial Way plaques a student art project
If you took a stroll down Memorial Way this week, you might have noticed some wooden plaques leaning against the trees. Each plaque had the name, and sometimes a photograph, of one of the UW students killed in World War I. The trees were planted in memory of those students.
Which is why art student Megan Cox placed the plaques there for her public art piece, More Than Just Names. Cox was responding to an assignment to map a place on campus.
“I first got interested in Memorial Way on a tour the class took with (campus art administrator) Kurt Kiefer,” Cox said. “He pointed out that the trees were planted for the people from the UW who died in WWI, and sadly the trees will soon begin to die too. I began to do research on the trees and then the people themselves.”
Cox said she wanted people who saw her art — the first public art she has done — to think about the real people the trees represent and not just the names. “It made me so happy to watch people stop to look at the pictures, and I even heard some people discussing them,” she said.
Gloria Bornstein, an affiliate faculty member, is the teacher of the site analysis public art class, called Contested Contexts and Sites. “I am thrilled with the students’ pieces, which vary from Web sites to videos to light projections, signs and installations on the third floor of Suzzallo,” she said
