Six recyclable sculptures built by 17 art students and installed on the South Oval are intended to raise environmental awareness on campus in conjunction with Undergraduate Student Congress Green Week.

This year was the first year Green Week has presented the projects made by students in the “Foundations 3D” class, taught by art professor Jeff Beekman, said Allyson Sand, Green Week vice chairwoman of communications.

Sand, an energy management senior, said the Green Week executives invited students in a 3D art class to create proposals for reusable recycle bins made of recyclable products.

Green Week is an annual, weeklong event featuring entertainment and educational events to encourage environmental awareness, Sand said. The sculptures promote both recycling and an awareness of one’s overall impact on the planet, Sand said.

“We just did this to promote awareness of reusing materials and recycling to kind of spark people’s interests and … put Green Week on the map,” Sand said. “[Recycling] is an easy thing to do that can make a pretty profound impact.”

OU art professor Victor Youritzin stopped on the South Oval Monday after noticing a garbage can covered in used aluminum cans.

Youritzin examined the sculpture and said it was one of the best he has seen at OU even though he did not know it was connected to Green Week.

He said the piece may reflect influences from early 20th-century artists like Pablo Picasso or Kurt Schwitters, who began using everyday objects to create art, adding that the diagonals and the base add to the can’s unique impression.

“The way the artist or artists who did this juxtaposed all the cans is extremely effective and bravo to whoever created it,” Youritzin said. “I just think it’s a wonderfully dynamic piece … I’m just looking at it as something that I think is a very successful design.”

Students whose designs were selected had about a week to create the sculptures both in and out of class, University College freshman Sam Greer said.

Greer and two other students created a sculpture of a young tree made of recyclable paper, titled “Back to Nature,” because it represented the recycling process well, she said.

“If you recycle, it’s like planting a new tree,” Greer said. “I wanted to represent that in a way that people would understand directly.”

An active member in environmental clubs since high school, Greer said she wanted to participate in Green Week because of her passion for the environment and recycling — especially as her hometown of Flower Mound, Texas, grew from a small town, and the natural landscape changed to include strip malls and residences.

“I’ve always loved trees, and [the environment] always been something that I’ve really liked,” she said.

The sculptures will be on display on the South Oval until Thursday when Green Week ends, Sand said.

LINK:
• For more information about Green Week’s events, click here