Wall Art Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Yagami Campus Relocation

April 30, 2023

On November 28, 2022, a large, vibrant piece of wall art was completed on the entire wall just to the right of the main entrance on the first floor of Building 34 at the Yagami Campus. It was created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the campus's relocation and depicts a vision of the future 50 years from now.

This wall art project originated from the idea of doing something interesting for the anniversary—something befitting the Faculty of Science and Technology that would remain for future generations. An executive committee was formed, and the project was announced through faculty meetings, Slack, keio.jp, and other channels, widely recruiting interested participants from the Yagami Campus community.

On the sunny afternoon of September 25 last year, amidst the bustle of the Yagami Festival, a workshop was held to create the wall art, drawing about 40 participants. The internationally diverse group, spanning a wide range of ages and centered around students, faculty, and staff, also included their families and international students. They were divided into four groups.

Led by a coordinator, the workshop flowed through various group activities, with information shared among all participants via presentations from each group. The work tables were supplied with art materials like drawing paper, colorful sticky notes, glue, scissors, crayons, and colored paper.

The session began with a creative warm-up exercise: participants faced their drawing paper, drew random lines with their eyes closed, and then identified what shapes they could see. This was followed by practice in expressing thoughts through art, including a quiz where groups created artworks based on assigned themes for others to guess.

Moving on to the main topic, participants expanded their vision of the future campus by writing down associations from keywords like "university," "50 years from now," "living environment," "transportation," and "food" on sticky notes and attaching them to large sheets of paper. They further developed their ideas by imagining specific details about the people who would attend this campus—their nationalities, names, appearances, hobbies, research topics, and future dreams—freely expanding on their "wouldn't it be great if..." concepts. To conclude, each participant created and shared an artwork representing their own ideal future campus.

This wall art was later created by a professional artist, based on the ideas and aspirations of the workshop participants.

It is filled with the vibrant and colorful dreams of us, the residents of Yagami: a growing treehouse, commuting by drone, futuristic makeup, hybrid concerts, a space elevator, interactions with aliens, and more. We invite you to take a close look at the actual artwork to discover the hidden stories, count the total number of people and creatures depicted, and appreciate the fine details, even those drawn on the wall's light switch.

What will people who see this wall art think in the year 2072?

Reference: Wall Art Introduction Video

(Sachiko Takamine, General Affairs Section, Faculty of Science and Technology)