(Cover Photo Source: Gartic.io)

Anyone interested in the arts and media should be on the lookout for the new Visual Arts Club. The club was founded to be an environment where people can express themselves in a fun and relaxing way. “We can go paint and have fun or we can make it more educational – we will take the club in whichever direction the student body wants it to go through,” said Club President Ruby Rich, Class of 2024. Right now, NYU Shanghai still does not offer a lot of resources for visual arts, so the club wants to make art easily accessible to all students.

As a new club, the board members want to focus on community building and are looking to recruit more members. “We’ll make it as democratic as possible – so people can come in and give their own ideas,” Ruby said. The Visual Arts Club has already held two small events – a drawing picnic where members gather to draw outside and an online event of Gartic phone, an entertaining mashup of playing Pictionary and Telephone.

Everyone is welcomed and encouraged to join in, even if your art is “stick figure level,” said Secretary Jahangir Rafiq, Class of 2024.

With the Covid transition, the club has indicated their regret over not holding in-person events, but they still look forward to bringing events to the NYU Shanghai community online. Ruby said, “Doodling & knitting was a way for me to survive through zoom calls.”

Vice president Emily Wei, Class of 2024, said “Art in itself is so therapeutic and free it can help a lot with our mental health issues.”

If you want to know more, please go check out the Visual Arts Club page on NYU Shanghai Engage.