Strong winds were no match for Malissa Geer’s months-long effort to organize the Downtown campus’ fourth-annual Urban Gallery Exhibition to bring ASU closer to the community.

The weather forced Geer, a University community-engagement liaison and the event’s organizer, to set up differently than planned, moving the outdoor stage inside the University Center to join the indoor stage. But the exhibition still helped to make the Downtown campus a true urban university, she said.

“I’m delighted because I know that the vision for our Downtown campus really is to be integrated without community,” Geer said. “I couldn’t feel better about the success of how many people did come out despite the wind and despite the million other important things they could have been doing tonight.”

The exhibition was the finale of the day-long Action, Advocacy, Arts event at the University Center, extending through the first two floors of the building, as well as floors four through eight. The day’s events included music, artistic performances and art.

While some people at the event looked at art, Joseph “Sentrock” Perez made it.

Perez break-danced with paint on his hands and shoes atop a taped-down canvas on the second floor of the University Center to create art. Perez, 22, of West Phoenix, said he wanted to take dancing and creating and presenting dance to people in a form known as motion art.

“The finished project is always good; you want to see what it looks like when it’s done,” Perez said. “But to see it in the makings and to see it developed right before you is always a whole other area of its own.”

Perez’s was one of many performances throughout the night. While fewer groups performed than originally intended due to the weather restrictions, the variety of acts still included local bands, ASU dance students, a samba group and more.

Along with all of the performances, the event featured four art collections, including “Migration: Immigration, Giving Honor to Cultures and Communities,” an exhibit intended to open dialogue about the topic of immigration.

Gricelda Vasquez, 19, of central Phoenix, worked with 29 other high-school students and Neighborhood Ministries, a downtown Phoenix Christian outreach for low-income families and at-risk youth, to put together a piece called “Neighborhood Ministries High School Leadership Media Project” that involves more than 300 photos and 30 interviews of members of their community.

Barrett, the Honors College, also participated in the event with an exhibit and performances of their own. Associate Dean for Barrett Laura Peck said the exhibition is a great event for students to go into the community and for the community to come into the University.

“The University goes out into the community to explore and learn, and the community comes in to tap our intellectual resources,” she said.

The Barrett exhibit, “Spring Forward,” consisted of 11 artists. Two individuals and three groups also performed on behalf of Barrett, including accounting sophomore Matthew “Stolid” Rodriguez of Charizmatic Records.

Rodriguez said community members get involved in what’s going on when they can see what students are doing.

“It’s a lot easier for people to come out to an event where they don’t actually have to do anything besides observe and be entertained by whatever art is being displayed, rather than having someone come to you and saying ‘Get more involved in the community,’” Rodriguez said.

More than 30 nonprofit groups were present at the event. Geer intentionally set up groups with similar interests to be in close proximity of one another.

Geer said art is magnetic, which is why it was able to bring the ASU community closer to the downtown Phoenix community.

“Art engages us in a really unique way,” Geer said. “When you put it in a university setting, you attach it to stories, you attach it to organizations and you provide opportunities to sustain those relationships, I just can’t imagine that that doesn’t have a positive impact.”

Reach the reporter at snrodri2@asu.edu.