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Omni Dallas Hotel

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Project-Based Learning at Civic Scale

Beginning in 2019, the ongoing partnership between UT Dallas’s LightSquad and the Omni Dallas Hotel represents an innovative model for how higher education, industry, and civic institutions can collaborate to create meaningful public art while advancing student learning, professional development, and community engagement. Centered on the Omni Dallas Hotel’s iconic four-mile LED façade, one of the largest digital canvases in the southern United States, this collaboration transforms the Dallas skyline into an evolving platform for student-generated media art, simultaneously showcasing the creative capacities of the university and enriching the city’s cultural landscape.

“Project-based education is paramount… students have to prepare for a life of projects, and a life of projects is a life of dealing with clients.”

Professor Andrew F. Scott

Led by Professor Andrew F. Scott, the LightSquad functions as an interdisciplinary collective of undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, and faculty from UT Dallas’s Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology. Working directly with the Omni’s content management team, including UT Dallas alumna Ruth Andrews, students gain hands-on experience navigating every stage of large-scale public art production. This includes conceptual development, technical design, client engagement, iterative feedback cycles, and the complex translation of digital work to a curved, high-visibility, urban architectural surface. Each project serves as both a pedagogical laboratory and a professional production environment, preparing students for careers in creative industries where technological literacy, client collaboration, and public engagement are essential.

“These student shows are definitely one-of-a-kind, and nothing like it has been displayed on our lights.”

Ruth Andrews–Varghese
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Major projects such as Cosmic Trailblazing (2023) during Dallas Arts Month, and 12 Days of Christmas (2024), a seasonal activation for the city’s holiday programming(Time-Lapse), have allowed students to see their work presented nightly to thousands of residents and visitors, extending far beyond traditional gallery or classroom settings. In each instance, students are challenged to address the aesthetic, technical, and logistical demands of working at architectural scale while simultaneously reflecting on how public art can activate civic space and foster communal experience.

“I was able to learn a lot about how shapes and colors play together on a larger scale… especially on a building that’s curved and not necessarily flat.”

Yvonne Yu
Cosmic Trailblazing
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Cosmic Trailblazing
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This partnership directly supports UT Dallas’s institutional mission to integrate experiential, project-based learning with public-facing scholarship. It exemplifies how academic programs in art and technology can create high-impact opportunities that connect students with professional partners, generate significant public visibility, and contribute to Dallas’s growing reputation as a center for innovative media arts practice. The LightSquad and Omni Dallas Hotel collaboration stands as a compelling example of public art education and community engagement.

“We believed this partnership would be a great opportunity… to display their art on the ‘largest billboard in the south.’”

Ruth Andrews–Varghese

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