Creatives have a chance to make a lasting mark on Ohio State’s campus and gain some social media clout by submitting their artwork to an Instagram wall competition put on by the Office of Student Life’s Kindness Committee and the Columbus Foundation. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
Creatives have a chance to make a lasting mark on Ohio State and gain some social media clout by submitting their artwork to be displayed on a campus wall as part of an Instagram competition put on by the Office of Student Life’s Kindness Committee and the Columbus Foundation.
The #BeKind Instagram wall contest, which is accepting submissions until March 5, will place the best submitted works of art around campus with hopes of creating a background for social media posts and spreading the message of kindness and compassion at Ohio State, Tracy Stuck, program director for community partnership and innovation with the Office of Student Life and member of Ohio State’s Kindness Committee, said.
The winners of the contest will also be given $500 to donate to their choice of more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations from the Columbus Foundation’s Giving Store.
“The thing about these Instagrammable walls is that it lasts for a while,” Stuck said. “We’re hoping that these just keep getting posted a variety of times, and hopefully it gets those kindness messages across in a very different way.”
The contest is open to nearly anyone involved with Ohio State: undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, staff and alumni from any campus, with no limit on the number of submissions allowed per person, Stuck said.
A committee made up of faculty, students and alumni will help select the top five submissions to be displayed on residence halls on North and South campus, Stuck said. The submission form states artwork will be chosen based on its originality, creativity and content of the submission, according to the submission form.
The requirements for submission are broad to attract different art styles, hopefully drawing a diverse range of creatives, Stuck said. People do not necessarily have to be artists, so anyone with any type of creative background or idea is encouraged to submit their ideas.
“One of the beauties of this program is that it really leaves it up to you how to interpret,” Dave Isaacs, spokesperson for the Office of Student Life, said. “Because it’s not a cookie-cutter ‘you must do this and you must do that,’ these are really going to be things that come from the hearts of those who submit.”
Though there are no restrictions for style, there are some practical requirements for the Instagram wall — the art must not be bigger than 10 feet wide by 10 feet tall, and the design must incorporate “#BeKind” or include it in the corner, according to the submission form.
Walls must be dry for a certain amount of days before the art can be installed, so the date on which the winning artwork will be debuted depends almost entirely on the weather, Stuck said. The artwork may be posted at the end of the semester, but could be sometime in the summer or fall semester.
Stuck said Ohio State’s return-to-campus survey indicated students, faculty and staff used acts of kindness as a way to cope with COVID-19 and improve their mental health, and she hopes that by combining the art of the Instagram walls with the reminder of kindness and compassion in the world, people will become happier.
The #BeKind social media campaign will be included in the art, Isaacs said. The hashtag will continue to share the message of kindness beyond the building that the art is placed upon.
“It starts with a static display in a specific area, but through social media that message spreads far and wide,” Isaacs said.
