Campaign Evaluation

The campaign that I evaluated was a project conducted by a group of students in Dr. Wolfe's Creative Inquiry class. The project was a day of service to work on the revitalization of Nature Based Sculptures in the South Carolina Botanical Garden. This project, termed "Project Revitalize" was a six hour effort by students, teachers, and other Clemson community members. Five Nature Based Sculpture sites were worked on, and two of these sites received extra attention because they were developing the most decay.

Basically, the Nature Based Sculpture program was an initiative started in 1995 where artists came into the garden, chose their site, and created an art sculpture of their choice made of entirely natural materials. What is most unique about these projects is that their natural decay is just as much a part of the art as their initial design. How people view these magnificent sculptures in the garden is entirely personal. Some of the sculptures are awe-inspiring- check out this one, my favorite, called Time Capsule:

To find out more about these amazing art sculptures, you can visit the Nature Based Sculpture website created by Clemson University: naturebasedart.org

The media campaign for this event could have been better. There were not many attempts to reach enthusiastic groups of the Clemson area, such as horticulturalists. Mainly students were involved in the event because the main form of media to tell the public about the event was flyers around campus. Although flyers can be helpful in showing students what they can get involved in, most students were not interested in this project. Older adults and groups in the community would have been attracted to this event, however, if they had only been informed in the right way. The only adult group that arrived on site for Project Revitalize was Ducks Unlimited.

Most participants were students, and many of these students had to come to the event for service hours or class credit. While these volunteers were a big help in revitalizing the sites, it was obvious that they were not getting much out of the experience. Better attention could have been drawn to the site if radio stations and newspapers were made aware of the event. This way, people that are interested in nature and art could come to the event, see the magnificence of the sculpture project, and recognize that they want to help in the future. In this way, Project Revitalize could have gained more fan base for future work on the art, and for new sculptures to come. By placing flyers around campus and posting on the naturebasedart.org blog page, the group was not able to reach a large audience. Also, their audience in general was the wrong people to target for the ultimate goal of Project Revitalize which was to raise respect and awareness for these great works of art.