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Herberger Institute Day

A community design and arts festival

The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts is more than a design and arts college. It’s a creative city, populated by more than 9,000 artists, designers, scholars — working, teaching and learning together. Herberger Institute Day launched in 2017 to bring together the students, faculty and staff of the Institute’s schools and art museum for a day of creative exploration and conversation. 

 

Come watch. Come make. Come mingle.

The spring 2026 Herberger Institute Day on March 26 was a celebration for all Herberger Institute students, faculty and staff. We hosted a variety of student performances and interactive activities at the Nelson Fine Arts Center plaza plus indoor activities in our design and art spaces on the Tempe campus. 

Dates and details for Herberger Institute Day 2027 will be announced at a later date. 

 

2026 schedule of events  

11 a.m.—3 p.m., Nelson Fine Arts Center outdoor plaza

  • Charm Making and Planting: Plant microgreen seeds in pods and create hanging charms for your plant pots. You'll have the opportunity to consider how to care for yourself, for others and for your creative community. | Herberger Institute Creative Mentors and Herberger Institute Visionary Edge (HIVE)
  • Community Art Response Experience: Contribute to a Herberger Institute community art piece at the Community Art Response Experience (C.A.R.E.) booth. Come paint and experience the community art process. | School of Art
  • Fashion Sketching Workshop: Try your hand at rapid fashion figure sketching using the 9-head proportion system. A provided template will get your started, then use your own imagination using dry medium styling techniques to create a finished fashion sketch within a short time frame. | ASU FIDM
  • Fun with Clay!: Come get your hands dirty at our tabletop ceramic wheels where you can see and feel what it’s like to “wheel throw” clay.  We’ll also have a clay sculpting station where you can create a small piece to attach to a larger community clay art piece that will eventually be kilned and displayed at the School of Art. | School of Art
  • Graphic Design Field Notebooks: Create “field note” sized sketchbooks and then customize your sketchbook cover. | The Design School
  • HIDAway-Picnic with Us!: Feeling overwhelmed and looking for a hideaway? Stop by the Design and Arts Corps picnic table to enjoy a relaxed space to pause, connect, and experience how community can grow through simple moments of sharing space together. | Design and Arts Corps
  • Pressed Flower Bookmarks: Create your own bookmark utilizing flowers and tape, inspired by the ASU Art Museum’s new installation, “Tonia Calderon:Endless.” | ASU Art Museum
  • Sonoran Seed Bombs: Make native wildflower seed bombs and learn more about the plants and landscape of the Sonoran Desert. | The Design School
  • Tabling and resource fair: Be sure to stop by the lawn area for more information about a variety of Herberger Institute support services. | Dean's Office
     

11 a.m.—3 p.m., Nelson Fine Arts Center outdoor plaza

  • Samuel Peña and Pop Music DJ Lab students, DJ set
  • Dance students from DCE 561, live aerosol paint and dance
  • Koby Slavin, electroacoustic bass clarinet
  • Chopp Duo, marimba duo with Nathan Hossenlopp and Caleb Hupp
  • Student Trombone Quartet, trombones
  • Student Jazz Combo, student jazz combo
  • Jason Wilcox, live-looping clarinet and bass clarinet

noon–3 p.m., multiple locations

Art is Civic, MASH Dance Studio Room 101
Come to a happening where dancing, democracy and declarations unite for experimental sessions.  In the spirit of Principled Innovation, participate in the exploration of one sentence in the Declaration of Independence. Join the Animating Research class and the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy in an opportunity to move, think, listen and challenge one of the original documents of our country. Explore its beauty and tension side by side, and then join in, and write your own declaration or reframe the one we have been given.  

Collage Trading Cards, Art Building Room 401
Create a set of trading cards using collage materials. Then trade one of your cards with other participants so you can collect them just like trading cards.

Cross-Cultural Dance Resources Collection Open House, Bulldog Hall Rooms 109, 115 and 121
Come view and experience this dance collection through hands-on engagement with rare films, photographs, costumes, and archival materials that show how dance histories are preserved and studied.

Esports Lounge, University Gateway Building Room 315
You're invited to join The GAME School’s efforts to build a Minecraft replica of ASU's Tempe campus. This event is a drop-in session, feel free to come place some blocks with us!

Foam Plate Relief Printing, ASU Art Museum Print Study Room
Create your own print using foam and a small press to connect to the Print Study Room. 

Immersive Audio Responsive Experience, Mill Avenue Student Housing Media Arts Commons Room 107
Join The Game School in an immersive, audio-responsive experience where your voice becomes light. Every whisper, laughter, and singing or spoken word is instantly translated into dynamic light colors and intensities using a specially designed microphone that captures the amplitude and vocal frequency in real time. This experience blurs the line between technology, art and human expression turning voice into color, rhythm into glow, and participation into performance

Lego Letterpress, Art Building Room 426
Design and customize a pixel-inspired printed image by using flat tile blocks run through the tabletop Lego Letterpress to create original works of art.

The Wellness and Sound Studio, FAC 133
Please note, this event will only run 1:45–3 p.m. 
Come and experience the power of sound and meditation to enhance your wellbeing.

The World of Weaving, Art Building Room 402
Make a twill paper weave of your own design (to take home) or experience working on an actual tapestry loom and contribute to a collaborative weaving project in process.

“Tierras Reimaginadas: Migration” Scavenger Hunt, ASU Art Museum
Explore the ASU Art Museum's "Tierras Reimaginadas: Migration" exhibition with a printed scavenger hunt or explore the public art on campus through the museum's Bloomberg app.

Visualization/Ideation with Industrial Design, Design South Room 126
Get an introduction to invention and design.

“While We Wait” Open Dress Rehearsal, FAC 133
Please note, this event will only run noon—1:30 p.m.
Stop by to watch a dress rehearsal in action! ASU theatre students will be rehearsing “While We Wait,” a devised performance built from interviews with Ukrainians affected by the full-scale war that broke out in 2022, weaving together chapters from different lives to explore the courage and challenge of living life fully without putting it on pause. Content transparency: “While We Wait” includes depictions of and references to war. 

HIDA Day FLyer

Check out the videos from prior years