Community Paint and Pass with Beyond Words

For Civic Engagement Day, explore how creativity cultivates community and connection! Join the team from Beyond Words in the courtyard outside Lehigh University Art Galleries (LUAG) for a collaborative Paint and Pass Activity.

Schedule:

4:00 - 4:30 PM
A teaching artist from LUAG will provide a basic overview of the activity

4:30 - 5:15 PM
Paint and Pass, Rotation #1 – participants will begin the activity, passing their canvas around the table every five minutes to create a collaborative artwork.

5:15 - 6:00 PM
Can’t join us at 4:30PM? Join us for Paint and Pass, Rotation #2! Participants will begin the activity, passing their canvas around the table every five minutes to create a collaborative artwork.

6:00 PM
Participants will have an opportunity to share thoughts about the experience and discuss with the group.

This event is free and open to all.
Light refreshments and all art-making materials will be provided.

Offered in collaboration with Beyond Words: A Making Space for Political Dialogue.

As the current media landscape makes clear, campus communities across the United States are struggling to engage meaningfully across political differences. The challenge lies not only in what we discuss but how we communicate—through methods that often flatten nuance and deepen polarization. The Beyond Words project offers an alternative. The team is constructing an innovative space for dialogue and inquiry at Lehigh University that can serve as a model for other campuses and communities nationwide.

Beyond Words: A Making Space for Political Dialogue invites students to explore political and social issues through visual and spatial practices, such as dioramas, models, zines, drawings, and maps, that translate complex questions into expressive, tangible forms. By shifting dialogue from argument to making, participants connect through curiosity and imagination, opening dialogue where words alone have failed.

At the center of this work, and a primary goal of its first year, is the creation of a “Beyond Words” space on campus, where making becomes a means of listening, witnessing, and envisioning alternatives together. The project aims both to pioneer new methods for bridging divides and to equip students with transferable skills in creative problem-solving, care-based communication, interdisciplinary collaboration, and political imagination. Click here to learn more.