Unessay: Covid-19's Impact on Airport Art
- Discipline
- City and Regional Planning
- Semester
- Spring 2022
- designer
- Baruah, Adit
- faculty
- McNair, Amber
- Description
- The ‘unessay’ concept chosen was a website that aimed to adequately address the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on airport infrastructure. More specifically, the website was suited to analyze the relationship between art and the Covid-19 airport experience in the United States. This was done through the exploration of the role art plays during travel, the way art can alleviate stress when traveling during a pandemic, the mediums through which art is presented and how that has changed in a Covid-19 world, and the ways in which both art and terminal design work together to create an aesthetic environment for travelers. My selected medium – a website – symbolically correlated to the topic because I wanted to visually convey the aspects that are prevalent in airport art into my final deliverable. In other words, I wanted to somehow include vibrant colors and diverse themes to create a jovial and warm mood that relieved stress from the website viewers. This is why I included light colors and tried to incorporate more visual elements into the final product than what would normally be found in a typical website. Furthermore, my website was suitable for a specific audience – namely the AVIATN 5300 class, the class’s professor and teaching assistant(s), members of the aviation and art communities, and anyone else who enjoys exploring art in public spaces. As outlined above, there was not a core, motivating question that was aimed to be answered by the final deliverable – it was more of an investigation than anything else. That being said, the important information learned included the main purposes of art at airports – including elevating the moods of travelers and art being used as waypoints/points of navigation – the effects of the pandemic on airport art as a whole – including artist furloughs, programming budget cuts, and shifts in priorities – the transition from in-person art exhibitions and residencies to virtual experiences, and the combination of art and terminal design to create an aesthetic environment for those moving through terminal structures. To support the information discovered, news coverages, airport art websites, artwork hub websites, and interviews were all utilized as evidence. Finally, a plethora of new and relevant knowledge was gained that related to the planning, designing, and/or development of airport infrastructure. The primary information gained was the intricate collaboration that goes into deciding where airport art goes and how it works with the terminal structure itself. The ACRP Synthesis 114 report delved into the different areas of a terminal building, the primary locations of passenger congregation, and how best to integrate art so that it conforms to FAA construction standards while still creating a positive ambiance for passengers. By balancing all these different aspects, artworks, exhibitions, and large-scale projects can be successfully completed in a manner that yields beneficial results for all parties. In this way, art continues to – and will continue to – play a large part in travelers’ experiences at U.S. airports. Website: https://aditb34.wixsite.com/aviatn5300