Campus in Sketches (Student Life Archive)

Drawing the university life through the students experience

Campus in Sketches is a creative student life archive that captures the university through the eyes of the people who experience it daily.

Using vast contemporary visual practice, students are invited to observe, interpret and record the places, people, rituals, encounters and everyday moments that make their campus a living community.

A lecture theatre before class.

Friends meeting between lectures.

A favourite café.

A crowded library during exams.

Orientation week.

A quiet corner of campus.

A sports facility, studio, laboratory or courtyard.

Small moments that may seem ordinary today will become memories tomorrow.

Campus in Sketches transforms these memories into a collective visual archive of university life.

It asks a question:

What does university life look like through the eyes of its students?

1. Vision

The vision of Campus in Sketches is to create an evolving visual record of university life that documents not only the university’s facilities and achievements, but the human experience of studying there.

Universities traditionally preserve their history through official documents, photographs, publications, records and institutional archives. Leading Australian universities already recognise the value of preserving student life through clubs, societies, photographs, publications, oral histories and other records of student experiences. (Library⁠)

Campus in Sketches adds another layer to this tradition.

It gives students a leading role of observers, artists and storytellers.

Instead of documenting the university only from the institutional perspective, the program asks:

What does this campus mean to the people who live, study and spend their formative years here?

The result is an evolving visual portrait of the university drawn from many individual perspectives.

2. Why it matters

University is more than a number of facilities, courses and timetables.

For students, it is an important period of friendships, discovery, independence, uncertainty, ambition and personal transformation. Much of this experience happens outside formal teaching: in corridors, cafés, clubs, libraries, sporting spaces, gardens, student unions and spontaneous encounters.

Yet these everyday experiences can be surprisingly neglected to preserve.

Institutional archives naturally tend to collect official records, while student memories are often temporary, dispersed and personal.

This is why universities around Australia have developed archives dedicated to documenting student life. The University of Melbourne Archives, for example, holds records from more than 60 student clubs and societies, alongside photographs and other material relating to student life. (Library⁠)

The University of Sydney preserves photographs, posters, maps, videos, publications and histories, including a collection of more than 300 interviews with members of its university community. (University History Sydney⁠)

Campus in Sketches builds on this archival tradition through contemporary creative practice.

It also responds to something important happening in the student experience today: belonging is not created only through academic achievement.

Research using more than one million Australian Student Experience Survey responses found that interactions with other students, support to settle into university, orientation and the overall educational experience were among the strongest predictors of students’ sense of belonging. (Monash University⁠)

Making artworks together creates an opportunity for this kind of interaction.

Students slow down and observe their environment. They notice people and places they may normally pass without paying attention. They share visions and discover that the same campus can be experienced in completely different ways.

A sketch or collage therefore becomes more than an artwork.

It becomes a piece of memory.

3. Program objectives

Campus in Sketches aims to:

document the lived experience of university students;
create a contemporary visual archive of campus life;
encourage students to observe their environment with greater curiosity;
strengthen students’ connection to place and community;
create opportunities for students from different backgrounds to work together;
encourage creative expression without requiring formal artistic training;
make student stories visible within the university;
draw connections between present-day student life and the university’s history;
encourage students to notice and value everyday moments;
create a collective cultural record that can be preserved and revisited.

The program shifts the idea of an archive from something students simply visit into something they actively create themselves.

4. Who it is for

Campus in Sketches can be delivered to a broad university community.

Students

Undergraduate and postgraduate students who want to explore campus life through drawing and creative expression.

First-year students

A particularly valuable experience during transition from high school into university, encouraging students to explore their new environment and begin making connections.

International students

An accessible creative activity that provides a way to explore an new campus, share perspectives and connect with other students without requiring advanced language or artistic skills.

Student societies and clubs

A creative project that documents the unique communities, activities and traditions that make campus life memorable.

Academic cohorts

A creative addition to orientation, first-year experience programs, disciplinary learning or community-strengthening activities.

Alumni communities

An opportunity to connect past and present student experiences and contribute memories to an evolving university history.

The wider university community

Staff, academics, alumni and community members can also participate in selected projects, creating a richer and more specific portrait of university life.

5. Program structure

Campus in Sketches is tailored to the university’s campus, social calendar, student community and archival objectives. The duration, creative approach, locations, number of participants, themes and methods of collecting and presenting the work can be developed around each institution’s needs.

The program can operate as a one-off creative experience, a semester project, a recurring student-life initiative or an ongoing living archive.

Examples of tailored program formats are available on request.

6. Expected outcomes

For the student as a person

Campus in Sketches gives students an opportunity to reflect on the place where they are spending an important period of their lives.

Students can develop:

greater observation and visual awareness;
creative exploration;
stronger connection to place;
opportunities for self-expression;
new social connections;
greater appreciation of everyday experiences;
stronger sense of participation in university life;
tangible personal record of their student experience.

The program can also create a moment of pause within a demanding academic environment.

Research into arts-based student initiatives suggests that shared creative activities can support social connection, belonging and positive student experiences. (DOI⁠)

Having completed the program, students do not simply leave with an artwork.

They leave having explored more closely on where they are.

For the university as institution

Campus in Sketches creates something universities increasingly value: a visible record of student experience and campus culture.

The resulting collection can become part of the university’s broader archive alongside photographs, publications, oral histories, records and other materials.

It can support:

student engagement and belonging initiatives;
orientation and transition programs;
university cultural strategies;
alumni engagement;
institutional storytelling;
exhibitions and campus displays;
digital archives;
anniversary and milestone celebrations;
student recruitment and university marketing;
connections between current students and alumni.

The program can also create a distinctive visual identity for the university as a portrait of campus created by the people who actually live it.

For the community as strengthening connection

Campus is a community first, and then – a number of buildings and other facilities.

Campus in Sketches encourages students to capture in sketches the people and places that form that community.

When students create together, they naturally exchange observations:

“Why did you choose this place?”

“Do you come here often?”

“I’ve never noticed that building from this angle.”

“That’s exactly what this place feels like to me.”

Small conversations can become points of connection.

Our program uses creativity as a social bridge of bringing students together around something accessible, enjoyable and non-competitive.

This is particularly relevant because Australian research identifies interaction with other students and support in settling into university among important predictors of belonging. (Monash University⁠)

For the state – preserving a generation’s experience

Universities are part of Australia’s cultural memory.

Every generation experiences studentship differently. Buildings become modernised. Technology progresses. Student culture shifts. The way people study, socialise and communicate changes.

But much of this transformation is invisible and can be lost unless someone records it.

Campus in Sketches creates a contemporary record of how a generation experienced university life.

Over time, a collection of student sketches can become a cultural document showing future students and researchers what campus life looked and felt like at a particular moment in Australian history.

In this sense, the program contributes beyond the immediate student experience.

It preserves today’s university for tomorrow’s community.

7. Partnership opportunities

Campus in Sketches can be developed in partnership with different areas of the university.

Student Experience & Engagement

A creative initiative supporting participation, connection and belonging.

Orientation & Transition Programs

An engaging way for new students to explore campus, meet others and begin developing a relationship with their university.

University Archives & Libraries

A direct opportunity to create new material for the university’s contemporary collections and connect present-day students with institutional history.

Universities such as Melbourne and Sydney already maintain substantial collections documenting student life, photographs, clubs, societies, publications and other aspects of university history. (Library⁠)

Alumni Relations

Invite alumni to contribute memories alongside current students, creating a dialogue between generations.

Marketing & Communications

Selected sketches can become part of university storytelling, exhibitions, publications, websites, social media and anniversary campaigns.

Student Clubs & Societies

Document the communities, traditions and activities that form the social tapestry of campus.

Faculties & Schools

Develop specific collections capturing the distinctive environments and experiences of students studying different disciplines.

Cultural & Creative Programs

Position the project within the university’s broader commitment to creativity, culture and community.

Research Partnerships

The archive can also provide opportunities for research into student experience, through the place, belonging, memory, visual culture and university communities.

8. Create your university’s visual memory

What will students remember about your university in twenty, thirty or fifty years?

The buildings may still be there. The photographs may still exist.

But what about the feeling of being there?

The conversations between lectures.

The places where friendships began.

The quiet corner where someone always studied.

The crowded café.

The first day on campus.

The afternoon at the library before an exam.

Campus in Sketches captures the university that official records cannot always preserve: the university as lived by its students.

Each sketch becomes a small fragment of a larger story.

Together, those fragments create a living student-life archive – a visual portrait of the university drawn by its community and preserved for its future.

Let’s create your Campus in Sketches.

Examples of tailored program formats are available on request.