While the University is well known for its commitment to athletics and academics, the campus tradition of public art is slightly less known but no less relevant.Five University sculpture students will transport their work downtown Thursday to the Shaw Center for the Arts to participate in the show “You Are Here.” After setting up their pieces around the perimeter of the complex, the student art will remain on public display until the center decides to remove them.The show, which will take place Thursday between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., is part of the advanced context and content class, which challenges students to allow the space the sculpture will fill to drive the content of the art.”The work is not only physically site specific but also conceptually site specific,” said Malcolm McClay, assistant art professor. “The content of the work is driven by the context in which it is situated.”For this project, the context is the area immediately surrounding one of the premier artistic venues in the city. After McClay took his students on a tour of the site, he asked them to design project proposals incorporating the space they would occupy.Once the sites was inspected, the students were asked to use Adobe Photoshop — a graphics editing program — to implant their preliminary drawings into the proposed space. Once the written and visual elements of their proposals were completed, they were sent to the director of the Shaw Center for approval.”I want these students to have the real world experience of making proposals and possibly having to make compromises,” McClay said.McClay said he told the critics from the Shaw Center to be as critical of his students as they would be of any other artist walking in off the street.”Anytime we have emerging artists and they have a chance to display their art, it’s important to provide that chance,” said Shaw Center director David Briggs. “The nature of this building is to promote a quality of life, and art has an important impact on that quality.”For some of these students, “You Are Here” represents their first foray into designing art for a public space. Because they were expected to work through the proposal process before their art was accepted, the students earned real world experiences relevant to every artist.”We have to show we are reliable,” said Katie Moser, studio art junior. “If we mess up, we’ll have a hard time working in Baton Rouge again because we’ll have let down the director of the Shaw Center.”Aside from the pressure of working under contract, the artists also must contend with the fact that their art will be on display for any passers by.”It’s definitely more worrisome because it’s going downtown,” said Ariadne Doyle, studio art senior. “It won’t just be our classmates critiquing it, but anyone walking by.”While having their art exposed to public eyes might add some extra stress to a project, Briggs said the Shaw Center’s commitment to University art is important to the Baton Rouge community.”The general public needs the chance to participate in public art, whether they want to or not,” Briggs said. —-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]