Facilities and Campus Services Director Kim Mahoney sees a new digital future for UAA’s public art

In October of 2010, Facilities and Campus Services compiled information on hundreds of indoor and outdoor artworks across UAA. This database — containing details about these installations’ varied histories and processes of creation — is currently housed in Google Drive files and Microsoft Access tables, not immediately readable by the public.

Facilities Director and Associate Vice Chancellor Kim Mahoney sees a window of opportunity after almost a decade and a half of the database remaining unchanged.

“This initiative that I’m just launching,” said Mahoney, “is to bring [the art database] up-to-date to make it more current, but then also make it more accessible to the broader community.”

This project is still quite new, only the subject of two meetings by the time TNL talked to Mahoney. The idea, however, has been a persistent concern for her in her seven years at Facilities. Despite this, her encumbered schedule and many administrative responsibilities have held the project at conception. This is corroborated by her administrative reach — overseeing UAA’s maintenance, general operations, planning, construction and incident management.

Mahoney — in her office in Gordon Hartlieb Hall — presented TNL with the long-preserved binder, dated to 2010, which housed photos and articles of varying length on coated paper. She paged through the documents with an air of fascination, noting that some works — such as the Fine Arts Building’s “Image Intervention” sculpture — had detailed multi-page stories dedicated to the artists’ process and biographies.

Some, however, were notably vague. The white, curved sculpture that occupies the front of Lucy Cuddy Hall had no title associated with it, and the identity of the sculpture’s original artist seemed uncertain. Also missing was any work installed after 2010, which Mahoney says includes her favorite sculpture — Heath Satow’s “Inflorescence” in front of the ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building.

Mahoney said it “Would be a win” to ameliorate this old list of works, but her ambitions aim higher.

“Ideally it would be an art tour … with QR codes so folks could [access information on the art] as they’re walking campus and seeing something interesting.”

The virtual tour component would also have a fully-online aspect in future iterations of the effort. Mahoney herself envisions a “virtual tour of the art that we have available on campus” with a website that could be used to search art by location, year, medium and artist among other details.  

Mahoney’s ideal scope for the project — as evidenced by her enthusiasm for it — would extend beyond the confines of the main campus.

“I think it’d be great to tie in the community campuses,” she said of the virtual tour, with reference to other projects such as the Alaska Native Success Initiative.

“We want to amplify in indigenous art and provide more access to those types of art pieces as well.”

Though these ideas are still at the drawing board, she is hopeful that the project can answer its own preliminary questions of scope, time, and — perhaps most importantly — funding. Being an engineer, these challenges are familiar to her and expected for something so early in its lifespan.

“We are still developing the project and then once we develop the scope, it'll take resources to do it, like time and money,” said Mahoney, with a pang of solemn acknowledgement. “What we don’t want to do is start something we can’t finish.”

However, the prospects of the initiative continue to drive engagement from Mahoney and her fledgling team.

“I’m excited that we can potentially launch this project, get some money to do the update and make it more accessible to the students in the campus community.”

Mahoney is focused on making this portfolio an educational resource. One that could encourage travel across campuses, promote Alaskan artists and forge new community bonds at UAA and beyond. Looking ahead, she’s confident in the substance of her plans.

“I'm thrilled that it's got some excitement, because that means there's some power behind the idea.”