Have you visited the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park and Rock Garden on campus yet? Hundreds of students and faculty drive or walk by the public space every day without even knowing it!

Installed in 2002 as part of a tree partnership, the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park and Rock Garden is inspired by Joseph Beuys’ “7,000 Oaks” tree planting project. Beuys was a prominent German visual artist and controversial social activist of the 1960s. The park was established to provide a safe, stress free place.

The area is also one of 130 of the TKF Foundation’s “Open Spaces, Sacred Places” initiative; the TKF Foundation funds the benches and the Beuys journal in the park.

The Park is also advocated by UMBC’s Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC). The CADVC encourages students and faculty members to  visit the park; you can go for a relaxing stroll or write your thoughts and prayers in the Beuys journal hidden beneath one of the park’s benches. Photocopies of past Beuys journal entries are archived at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (located in the Fine Arts building) and are available for public viewing.

The Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park and Rock Garden is located in front of the Commons Garage parking, near the edge of the Loop.

For more information about the CADVC and the park:

http://www.umbc.edu/cadvc/exhibitions/beuys.php

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Center-for-Art-Design-and-Visual-Culture/176232002401622

Joseph Beuys myUMBC group:

http://my.umbc.edu/groups/beuys

TKF Foundation:

http://www.opensacred.org/