In Fall 2025, our department partnered with the Henry Art Gallery to bring acclaimed interdisciplinary artist Chloë Bass to campus. As part of Bass' visit, four undergraduate students were selected to create original audio companions to her sculptural installation at Volunteer Park, collectively titled Soft Services.
The experience was immersive by design. Students traveled to Volunteer Park for a guided field trip, exploring Bass' installation through a set of prompts the artist developed specifically for them. After this exercise in close looking, deep listening, and conceptual thinking, they participated in a hands-on workshop with Bass herself, thinking through their ideas in direct dialogue with the artist whose work they were responding to.
The audio pieces the students created were recently launched as part of the Henry’s new initiative, Frequencies. The work spans traditional arts writing and poetic experimentation, and the pieces are designed to be listened to in any order, individually or as a continuous suite, ideally while wandering Volunteer Park itself.
That our students' work was developed within this professional framework, alongside commissions from established artists, speaks to the seriousness and sophistication of what they created. Henry staff described the works as offering "a thoughtful layer of engagement" for visitors, situating them firmly within the gallery’s broader vision for accessible and alternative entry points into its exhibitions.
The students themselves reflected on what made the experience distinctive. Sophia Moore reflects, “I found this independent creative project very inspiring to work on because it gave me the chance to reconsider my academic thoughts in new contexts. Audio-based projects are not often assigned in traditional classes, so the recording component of this project really pushed me to develop this valuable skill.”
Madeleine C. Green described how “this project as an open-ended, multi-modal undertaking felt like nothing I had done before in my college experience. Engaging with a real-world art installation in this way and through an institution offering and supporting the endeavor was a truly unique opportunity and stoked many interactions at many levels that I feel like there should be more of.
The partnership between GWSS and the Henry represents exactly the kind of opportunity we work to create for our students: direct access to living artists, real institutional contexts, and the understanding that their ideas have genuine impact beyond the classroom. We are grateful to the Henry for their ongoing collaboration, and enormously proud of the students who rose to this challenge!