By Erika Mantz, Media Relations
December 6, 2006

Students will unveil a large mural depicting what diversity means to their generation Friday, Dec. 8, from 5-7 p.m. in the Devine Hall lounge, where the four-foot by 15-foot mural will hang. The opening is free and open to the public.

The semester-long project actually started almost two years ago when Shannon Marthouse, assistant director of residential life at UNH, took a mental inventory of the art in the residence halls on campus and found it lacking.

“I wanted to bring beautiful, thought-provoking pieces to the dormitories and I immediately thought of Richard Haynes, a well-known artist and admissions councilor at UNH,” she said.

Her original plan was to write a grant proposal to the Parents Association to purchase some of Haynes’ work, but he had a different idea -- feature the work of students.

An $11,000 grant from the Parents Association has funded the project which is a group of 20 students, representing every residence hall on campus, creating a piece of art – in Haynes’ style -- that answers the question of what diversity means to them. Each student’s work of art will hang in their respective dorm, and the group will choose one to reproduce on a larger scale in Devine Hall.

The participating students are mixed both racially and socially and range from first-year students to juniors. They will each write about their piece for their residence hall’s newsletter.

“We found some of the students entered the project through an art lens while others came to it from more of a social justice/diversity perspective, but now everyone is looking at the issue in multiple ways,” Marthouse said. “Richard has really compelled them to explore social justice in their lives, for the common good of our society.”

The art work will be displayed in the Dimond Library gallery in February and at the Seacoast African American Cultural Center in Portsmouth this spring. An opening reception will be held April 15, 2007, from 1-5 p.m.