For only one day in the year, all U-High students can be found chucking clay in wheel throwing, burning cookies in an oven, or scribbling down stanzas in poetry during workshops at ArtsFest. 

ArtsFest will occur on Wednesday, March 1, as opposed to the Thursday in late February that it usually takes place on. Art in the Dark, an event with student performances, will take place the evening of Feb. 28 in Café Lab.

While students can expect many of the same activities as years prior, some notable workshops offered this year such as acroyoga, ice cream chemistry and a medieval fighting intensive.

This year’s schedule for ArtsFest is as follows:

9-10 a.m. — Opening assembly in Griffin Auditorium

10:10-11:10 a.m. — Period 1

11:20 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. — Period 2

1:20-2:20 p.m. — Period 3

2:25-3:15 p.m. Closing assembly in Upper Kovler Gymnasium

The opening assembly will feature Amanda Williams, a 1992 alumna who is now a visual artist on the South Side. Ms. Williams is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow.

According to ArtsFest adviser Brian Wildeman, the date was changed to avoid scheduling conflicts with middle school classes and make more art classrooms available for student use. In previous years, science classrooms were used.

“This really has overburdened the science rooms a little bit in the past, so we’ll be able to use the art classrooms for almost every single workshop session except one,” Mr. Wildeman said.

ArtsFest committee president and treasurer Grayson Smith believes the event gives a unique opportunity for students to have access to underutilized artistic spaces such as the dark room, spray painting booth and makerspace.

“Either students don’t know that those spaces exist or they either don’t really have chances to use them or they feel like they don’t,” she said. “With ArtsFest, they’re available to anyone.”