It’s clear on any college or university campus that art is a crucial part of what makes the experience, and just as academic, athletic, and social life have changed dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, so has the arts community. As a team of undergraduate students at Duke University who are also actively involved in the arts at a personal, club, and university level, we wanted to investigate exactly how art has changed on our campus.

The research questions that drive our fieldwork are:

Who are the artists on Duke’s campus and how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the ways they produce and distribute their art? 

How has the role of art shifted in the lives of artists and has their motivation to practice art changed due to the pandemic?

We approached these research questions by conducting interviews with a number of artists on campus, curating art that has been produced during the pandemic, and critically viewing the ways we as artists personally view the development and change of art over the past year.