Origin Story
ArtBuilds was founded in 2019 by four faculty members at the University of San Diego passionate about creating art in community. Our mission is twofold: to build expansive participatory art installations and cultivate the creative community behind them. The collective, a registered 501c3, is 100% volunteer run with a focus on the creation of large format, participatory sculptures that invite action. We have created a 12’ tall sundial with interchangeable disks (About Time), a 60’ long series of climbable hexagonal gates (ReEmergence), and a 2 ton unfolding dodecahedron covered in 17,000 LEDs (Unfolding Humanity). We have received commissions from the City of San Diego and the Burning Man Project as well as raised funds through public donations.
The kind of art we make takes a village. It is impossible to create 60 ft long, 20 ft tall sculptures with only a few people. Our installations involve a core team of ~25 people and are typically touched by more than 100 people throughout the build, to say nothing of those that interact with the pieces once finished. The challenge and complexity of these projects inherently brings people together - building this art is hard and rewarding work. Our team spends nights and weekends together for months, pouring themselves into creation. What keeps us going on these all volunteer projects are the friends we make along the way. When soldering hundreds of LEDs (read: boring) you get to know a lot about the person sitting across the table from you. One of our most important accomplishments is the community that we have created around the shared vision of these projects.
