Arts Everywhere Initiative

The CAS Arts Everywhere Initiative (AEI) is designed to enrich, celebrate, and make the  arts available across campus by encouraging interdepartmental collaboration and creativity. It supports students and their ideas showcasing the arts in new and inventive ways. AEI has hosted exhibitions across campus working with diverse stakeholders and spaces across the departments of Chemistry, English, and Philosophy, and continues to look for new opportunities to showcase, support, and develop student driven art and ideas across departments university wide. 

Beyond providing opportunities for creative expression, AEI serves as a network of resources and connections, linking students with department chairs, building managers, operations teams, and other campus stakeholders to help bring their ideas to life. By fostering relationships across departments and facilitating access to spaces, resources, and institutional support, AEI helps students navigate the process of developing and implementing arts initiatives throughout the university. Through this collaborative network, AEI works to make the arts an integral, accessible, and visible part of everyday campus life.

AEI does not provide artwork for individual offices. However, if you’re interested in viewing or acquiring student artwork, we encourage you to explore senior art shows and exhibitions hosted by the Art Department, where student work may be available. You can find links to current exhibitions and related events on the Art Department’s main page.

Explore: Art Department Main Page

No! In fact, non-art majors are encouraged to propose projects that demonstrate interdisciplinary connection between their field of study and the arts.

Proposals are not limited to the visual arts, but can span across academic and creative disciplines like music, dance, theater, poetry, science, medicine, and psychology. Projects do not need to be traditional visual artworks. However, because AEI's mission is to make the arts visible and accessible throughout campus, proposals should include a clear idea of how the project will be presented, installed, displayed, performed, or otherwise experienced in a physical campus environment.

• A dance or performance presented in a campus space
• A musical or sound-based work accompanied by a visual or spatial installation
• A poetry project presented through an installation, public display, or performance
• A film or video work exhibited in a campus space
• An interdisciplinary project that translates research into an artistic or spatial experience
• A participatory project that transforms a campus space through artistic activity

The visual-presentation requirement does not mean that the project itself must be visual. Rather, applicants should explain how the project will take shape as a public, physical, and/or spatial experience that members of the Stony Brook community can encounter.

In your proposal, please describe what the audience will see, experience, or encounter and how the project will occupy or activate its proposed campus setting.

Yes, both graduate students and faculty may submit proposals to AEI. However, proposals must demonstrate how their project is collaborative and engages other students, departments, and/or faculty and staff.

You do not need to secure departmental approval before submitting your proposal. If your project is selected, AEI will work with you to coordinate the necessary permissions and connect with relevant department chairs, building managers, and other campus stakeholders to help bring your project to life. Our goal is to help you navigate the approval process and identify the resources and support needed to make your idea a reality.

Yes. AEI offers modest funding for selected projects, which may include stipends for artists, curators, and project developers, as well as support for opening receptions. Materials costs are reviewed on a project-by-project basis, depending on the specific needs and available resources. Funding is determined based on the scope and requirements of each selected proposal.

AEI will work with selected students and collaborators to promote their projects through CAS communication channels, including social media, newsletters, and other university-wide platforms, as appropriate. Promotional support may include signage, email invitations, open calls, and other materials to raise awareness and encourage campus engagement. Depending on the project, AEI may also help coordinate an opening reception or other event to celebrate the work, connect audiences, and foster community across departments.

AEI seeks ideas that create bridges between the arts and the Stony Brook community at large. This means that proposals should clearly state how they plan to engage multiple stakeholders across campus. You do not need to have every detail figured out before applying. AEI welcomes projects in the early stages of development and can work with selected applicants to refine the concept, identify collaborators and campus spaces, and determine available resources. However, all proposals must state a clear vision for how the project will be encountered by an audience.