Through a collaborative partnership with Lamar Outdoor Advertising, the work of UT art students is appearing on several local digital billboards through mid-December.
This digital billboard near Fifth Third Field in downtown Toledo shows the artwork of April VanSlambrouck.
These images will be shown in varying locations around the city on 20 digital billboards over two months. A few noteworthy locations displaying student work will be I-75 at Berdan Avenue, I-475 at Upton Avenue, and Monroe Street and Sylvania Avenue.
Student images will be interspersed among the regularly scheduled advertising throughout the period, thanks to billboard time donated by Lamar. The images will be moved to different billboard locations throughout that time in order to have the work shown in numerous places in Toledo. And the election will take precedent until Wednesday, Nov. 7.
Barry Whittaker, UT assistant professor of art and coordinator of new media design practices, directed the project. He said this project provided students the chance to see their images directly connected to the city.
“For their work to be considered for display, the students had to consider ways to suggest movement or story beyond the frame in order to suggest a larger narrative,” he said.
This project allowed students to experience art production for large-format media and the technical considerations and limitations of outdoor, public display. The images had to be easily readable at a distance or from a passing car. The students had to create each image for multiple billboard sizes, so they could be shown on any of Lamar’s digital billboard locations. Each image was constructed to work within two different aspect ratios.
For those reading the billboards, the works briefly alter the advertising format of the signs to display another look at life in and around Toledo.
The untitled works are by student artists: Clinton Bales, Alyssa Brown, Kasia Gacek, Yang Gao, Morgan Hayward, Philip Herman, Jason Hinkle, Thomas Johnson, Marko Milliken, Halah Mohamed, Jessica Ostrander, Jeremy Pellington, Noah Roszczipka, Austin Tuttle, April VanSlambrouck, Jon Wittes and Mark Yappueying.
For a gallery of the images and a map to the billboard locations, visit http://utole.do/billboard.
For more information on the project, contact Whittaker at william.whittaker@utoledo.edu or 419.530.8320.
