ASU Herberger Institute's new dean says art can solve problems and 'build pathways for connection'

The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University has a new leader.

Renée Cheng took over as dean late last year, after working at schools including the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota and Arizona.

She recently joined The Show to discuss her goals for the Herberger Institute, what she thinks the role of the arts and design is in today’s society and what appealed to her about coming back to Arizona to take this job.

Full conversation

RENÉE CHENG: I think really it was ASU’s charter and meeting Michael Crow and seeing what he's been doing with it. The charter of inclusion and access and the taking of fundamental responsibility in society, that something unusual for public higher ed, but actually is very much in keeping with what I think public ed was founded for.

And so really seeing how that plays out at the ASU scale was quite intriguing, as well as Herberger is the one of the largest and most comprehensive design and arts institutions, and to be able to lead that and see what we could do together, was something that was really exciting.

MARK BRODIE: How do you find all of that plays into Design and the Arts, like the idea of inclusivity and, you know, sort of standing for something it seems like kind of what you're saying, like, how does that fit into the arts and design of what you're doing?

CHENG: Well, I think that's actually a core differentiator compared to a lot of other places. There are times where art is seen as a luxury for an elite group of people that have time and resources available. And I've always thought of art as really integral with enriching one's life and making one able to prosper in society.

So art and design, you know, a friend of mine likes to say we all live in a designed world, but the quality of that design is what determines who's thriving and who's not. And so it really is so much part of everyone's lives, even if they think of it as some separate thing. And trying to make more clear what we can do together and how those aspects of life can help us with sometimes intractable problems that don't seem to be related to art could actually be revealed by practices that we use in art and design.

BRODIE: Yeah. How do you try to sort of practically use that philosophy that you have to, as you say, sort of solve problems or maybe make the designed environment better for people for whom it hasn't been good so far?

CHENG: Right. So there's lots of examples that I can show you, but one, for example, is we have a whole set of researchers working in for aging populations or for children that are neurodiverse, that are looking at how light and sound affects their ability to focus and being able to provide refuge spaces or information for caregivers so that they can set up the space in such a way that those children or those elder adults begin to engage more fluidly and with less stress on them. So that would be one thing.

We also have recently been amazing - we won the X Prize, which is a major international prize for solving a really difficult problem. And this was to measure biodiversity in the Brazilian rainforest. And we had researchers working with a wide variety of scientists, looking at, how do you sample sound to look at the chorus of birds, not individual birds, to measure biodiversity that now can be used for setting up the strategies for increasing the biodiversity and using that to measure investments.

BRODIE: Let me ask you about something that you brought up a moment or two ago, in terms of thinking that art is not a luxury, art and design are not luxuries. I'm wondering, because I'm sure you have heard this in the past that like, tell me exactly how a painter, you know, solves a problem in the world, or how does, you know, going to see a dance performance, it can be delightful, but how does it solve a problem in the world? 

What's the real world impact on that, as opposed to, you know, some of the design elements or architecture, or some of the, you know, some of the examples you gave. I'm curious what you say to people when they say, “How does, you know, looking at a painting, you know, make my world a better place, or solve a problem, or, you know, any of the other, you know, fine or performing arts, maybe?”

CHENG: Right, so I can give an example of a faculty member. Ben Timpson, who does portraits of Indigenous women that have been lost, either through a variety of means, crimes or other social gaps in the social network. And he takes their photograph and he renders it with butterfly wings, and they're fairly large format, and he works with the family members, and it's a way for those family members to honor their relative, as well as to elevate other awareness that this is an epidemic. At the same time, these are beautiful portraits, but they have embedded in them all of this other meaning and all of this potential impetus for action and.

And so there are times where, by trying to come at a topic with words only, it is dry or doesn't really touch the emotional or the social heart of things. That performance or music or other senses begin to provide pathways for connection, and that, I think, is particularly when you come across issues that are tragic and difficult to solve and complicated, that would be one area another.

It is when you think about climate change and how it can feel like it's kind of abstract, and you hear that, you know, the global temperature rise by 1 degree. And you think, Oh, that's not that bad, right? But when you start to feel the difference in the number of fires, the days of excessive heat, there are ways that art and performance can make things visible and put in more perspective things that are happening slowly over time. And so that is another role that art and design media can play.

BRODIE: It sounds like what you're saying is getting information across to people in a way that might be a little different, maybe a little more interesting to them. Maybe it's a more effective way to relay information to people than just, you know, giving them an article to read or talking to them about it, that kind of thing?

CHENG: So people process information in wildly different ways. And if you look at how and also depending on where they are in their lives, if you look at children, they communicate a lot through dance and song, building forts and playing roles. And that is a really important way that they discover the world. They understand the relationship to others.

And over time, we actually kind of educate out of that and say, “Well, now you can put that away and do your math and do your science and do your writing.” And all of that's important, but my argument is that stop putting it away and start keeping the continuity, because there are ways that you can connect with others and understand the world that are through these other media that we tend to forget are these powerful tools that we regulate as less valuable somehow.

BRODIE: Do you find that to be a difficult argument to make? I wonder, especially now, given all the conversations going on about, you know, what is important and what is not, and what should we be spending money on as a society, and what should we not be like. How do you find trying to make that argument?

CHENG: Right now, I think that people are often surprised by that argument, but then if they think a little bit about it, they realize that the idea of empathy and connection, especially today, when there's so much isolation, is often done through things that we can all do, right? So if you recall people to their own experiences, they pretty much all can understand what that power might be and start to open up possibilities that it could relate to these much bigger, broader issues around social isolation or around climate change, which is not maybe an automatic connection that they've made without prompting.