#DCCKeepsCreating: Sprint 1

Last spring, members of our community began posting creative content on our social media platforms using the #DCCKeepsCreating hashtag. This semester, we’d like to revive this effort with the #DCCKeepsCreating contest, a way to share our creative work, inspire one another, and stay connected. This is a low-stakes, all-fun competition that will hopefully encourage us to keep exercising our creative muscles, especially in times of high stress, uncertainty, and change. Every two weeks, DCC staff will announce a new prompt to kick off a two-week “design print,” during which all current DCC students are encouraged to be inspired—in whatever way strikes you, in whatever creative medium you prefer—by the prompt to create something. Anything. Something quick, something fun, something exciting, something relaxing, something that brings you relief, joy, excitement, or peace.

Document what you’ve made in a social media post on Instagram or Twitter, tag us (@umd_dcc), and add the hashtag #DCCKeepsCreating to enter the contest. (Please be sure that your social media account is either public or that we follow you, so that we can see your post! If you’re not sure, send us a DM!) Our staff will review the entries at the end of each sprint to select a winner for a $25 prize, deposited into your UMD student account! As the contest continues throughout the semester—with a new sprint, winner, and prompt announced every two weeks—we hope you will engage with each other’s posts, share in your friends’ creativity, and be inspired to keep creating.

The prompt for Sprint 1 is: FALL. Our staff was inspired by the many interpretations of this word—as a season, as texture, through tastes and smells and sounds, through movement and sensation, through history and event. We were reminded of Maya Angelou’s 1971 poem, “Only lovers / see the fall / a signal end to endings / a gruffish gesture alerting / those who will not be alarmed / that we begin to stop / in order to begin / again.” We also recalled this piece, “Leap into the Void,” by artist Yves Klein. We hope you will be similarly inspired over the next two weeks to create something and share it with DCC!