Background
In 2015, I proposed a 1,800 sq/ft student-run shared creative space at Wesleyan University. I believed that there was a problem within the Wesleyan community regarding the allocation of creative resources — both physical resources, such as materials and workspaces, and abstract resources, such as time, knowledge, support, and community. For those who were not enrolled in studio art classes, access to Wesleyan's artistic resources was severely limited, a problem that disproportionally affected students from lower-income households. The Workshop was approved and funded in the summer of 2015 and opened up to students in the spring semester of 2016.
The Workshop
The school granted The Workshop 1,856 sq/ft space on campus. They had us work with their architects and project managers to help envision a space conducive to creating art in many mediums. The school allowed The Workshop to set up an independent governing board and make decisions about everything from material ordering to security access.
Photos
The Workshop opened in the spring semester of 2016 and is still in operation today run by a student board.
