This story has been updated as of Feb. 3, 2025, at 5:03 p.m.
The University of Kentucky’s College of Design opened its doors for the “Life on Earth” video gallery featuring the work of young up-and-coming architects and designers.
The gallery opened on Friday, Jan. 24 at the Gray Design Building on UK’s campus, featuring 18 architects, designers and artists from all over the world, according to the College of Design website.
The gallery was hosted by The World Around organization and featured projects showing the changes architects, designers and artists work could benefit or emphasize the impact on the environment. Work was featured from all over the world, according to The World Around’s co-founder Beatrice Galilee.
The World Around is a nonprofit centered around giving upcoming architects and designers a platform to display their work and ideas, according to The World Around’s website.
This gallery is the organization’s first exhibition to be opened, according to The World Around’s website. Commissioned by the College of Design, it was the first gallery with a focus on using video to exhibit projects in the Gray Design Building gallery.
Galilee is also the executive director of the The World Around. Galilee and The Associate Producer of The World Around, Ana Minujin, curated the exhibition.
This exhibition marked the first time The World Around had worked with UK.
“My work as a curator of architecture is to try and contribute to that conversation whatever way I can, and try and put forward people practitioners, who I think are at the cutting edge of what architecture is could be today,” Galilee said.
The gallery consisted of nearly 20 videos cycling through on three different screens in the gallery, as well as a video projection featuring interviews with The World Around’s Young Climate Prize members, according to Galilee’s opening lecture.
“I think to have video and something you’ve got to sort of sit down and interact with for a while is that it’s just a little more mind-opening,” Ned Crankshaw, the dean of the College of Design said.
During the lecture at the beginning of the event, Galilee introduced herself and her story, as well as the gallery. The exhibit’s purpose is to acknowledge the nature of architecture, according to Galilee.
“I realized that it’s really important to advocate for other types of architecture that’s not necessarily what you see on TV or what gets in the newspapers,” Galilee said.
With the theme Life on Earth emphasizing the environment, the gallery also showed new creative ways current architects and designers have talked about present issues, according to Galilee’s lecture.
Crankshaw hopes that the students can understand the impact architecture and design can have on environmental issues with this gallery.
“We have so much work to do, and that they’re (newer architects and students) really capable of making a difference, and that small, local actions can be replicated in ways that they can have global impacts,” Crankshaw said.
The World Around has a range of different speakers who come for in-person lectures and for their featured content on their website and YouTube.
The use of videos in the exhibition was inspired by The World Around’s focus on their media platforms, according to Crankshaw.
Brogan Cambria and Trey Hutchins, both freshmen architecture majors, liked the video in the gallery named “Planet City” by Liam Young.
Cambria and Hutchins described the video as depicting Young’s idealistic city built in tandem with a forest while being very environmentally intertwined.
McKenna Dunbar, a recipient of The World Around’s Young Climate Prize, spoke about the organization they co-founded, Electrivive, during the lecture.
The World Around’s Young Climate Prize is a mentorship opportunity the organization awards to 25 young architects to show their designs, activism and creations.
According to Dunbar, Electrivive is an organization focused on developing renewable energy sources, along with helping educate current and ex-inmates in jobs related to this sphere to help them get back into the workforce.
Many people within regional jails have backgrounds in jobs such as construction and the trades which can lend well to careers in renewable energy, giving these individuals a chance to be leading forces in their career, according to Dunbar.
“She (Galilee) opened my eyes, to like how different I thought the real world was compared to how it can be kind of taken advantage of, and how you can go on your own, completely separate path,” Hutchins said.
The exhibition will be open until March 14 for the public to walk through, according to the College of Design website.