The SETU student project Tidal Pulse connects rivers flow to student knowledge exchange. The Foundation Day installation brings to life SETU’s student voices in 2026.
Traveling art piece
As part of SETU’s Foundation Day 2026 celebrations, a unique artistic representation of SETU’s ‘student voice’ was designed to reflect the theme of the event, Making Impact. Entitled Tidal Pulse – Student Voices, the installation was displayed at each Foundation Day celebration to illustrate how SETU makes impact on the lives of its students in 2026.
SETU student experience
The project was led by the External Affairs office, with student involvement from across all three university campuses, in partnership with SETU’s PERSPECTA initiative, and the Students’ Union. Students from across Carlow, Waterford and Wexford took part in a survey via PERSPECTA and the Students Union, asking them to describe the positive impact SETU has on them.
The wide range of responses included words like ‘Second Chance’, ‘New experience’, ‘Opportunity’, ‘Transformative’, and ‘Community’. SETU’s Design Faculty and a team of final year design students from the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Design (Visual Communication), mentored by lecturer Joy Rooney, took on the challenge of bringing the student feedback to life.
For this year’s Foundation Day celebrations, we sought to actively engage our student body in telling what the theme, Making Impact meant to them in their lived experience of university life at SETU. Working with the Students Union and the new PERSPECTA student engagement programme we asked students to explain in one or two words the positive impact SETU has on them. Their responses included words like ‘empowering’, supportive’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘community’ - all clearly illustrative of the substantive impact their SETU experience is having on them. We engaged with the inventive minds of our design students to use these words to envisage, design and create the Tidal Pulse.
Niamh Nolan External Affairs Office
Bringing the student voice to life
The concept was developed further by SETU’s design students, who explored student voice, mobility and connection through the metaphor of rivers, estuaries and tidal movement. Each river estuary experiences a twice daily ‘tidal pulse’, an exchange of freshwater over saltwater currents. This pulse is evoked in the work as a visual metaphor for the knowledge exchange taking place each day at SETU.
The designers interpreted the student feedback to create individual designs, with a range of creations with historical, modern and place-based illustrations, which are embodied in the vibrant, colourful, creative flow of the river. These designs became the foundational base piece of the final exhibit, Tidal Pulse – Student Voices.
The design concept also draws inspiration from the forthcoming fiftieth anniversary of The Brendan Voyage, led by Tim Severin. That spirit of exploration linking ancient curiosity with modern inquiry underpins Tidal Pulse and the final piece is built in the likeness of a bridge using sustainable, natural materials throughout, including handmade oak laths with hemp fastenings to echo the ribs and stem of traditional maritime craft. These in turn represent the learning framework SETU provides through its five campuses and the link to SETU’s nine partner universities within the European University Alliance, EU-CONEXUS.
The Tidal Pulse project is a great example of SETU’s ambitions for the PERSPECTA group. It provided opportunity to amplify the student voice, encouraging reflection on different viewpoints and collaboration between different groups, with the collective goal of enhancing student experience at SETU. The creative expression is one which I think embodies the momentum and impact SETU is helping to create for our students and for the wider community.
Muirghin Brophy Programme Lead PERSPECTA
The art piece’s impact
The art piece is a creative, design-informed teaching and learning collaboration that responds to the overall Foundation Day 2026 theme, Making Impact. Placing students at the centre and giving visual expression to how SETU is making a meaningful impact on their lives today. With SETU’s campuses located beside river systems, the estuary becomes a symbol of exchange and transformation reflecting how learning, ideas and cultures flow outward from Ireland and inward from Europe and beyond.
The exhibit was on display at each of the Foundation Day events that took place in May 2026. It will also feature in the Design Graduate Show, opening on May 27, 2026, at the Index Gallery in the Central Library in the city.
To learn more about SETU’s Design Showcase, visit here.
Listen to SETU’s Design (Visual Communications) CourseCast episode here.
