Bird people, mermaids, trash and POTUS all flocked to the McKnight Art Center on Saturday. With an eclectic grouping of categories and 29 teams participating, McKnight was packed with creative and wearable art designed by students.

Project Run-a-Way held its 9th annual show on Nov. 5. The event was not only an opportunity for students to showcase their work, but also raised money for art students and the WSU gallery Shiftspace, located at 416 S. Commerce.

This year, local high schools, local artists and alumni were all welcomed to participate in the event. Many students involved either did it for their 3D design class or simply so they could showcase their art.

“We’re in the intro 3D class, so we had to get involved for that,” Aryawna Friesen said. “It’s been fun, though, so I’m glad we’re doing it.”

The show featured five categories from which the students could choose from. After deciding, they would create a piece based off of their category. The themes this year included; “Race for POTUS,” “Rocketed into 4D,” “FRACK THIS!!!,” “Here MIRO Again,” and “CODED Couture.”

Friesen and her partner MaKenna Allen chose the “FRACK THIS!!!” category.

“We could hear a lot of our class deciding to be in the bird people one and so we wanted to be different and not go with the norm, so we went with the ‘FRACK THIS!!!,’ which we had more ideas for anyway,” Friesen said. “Ours is called ‘Dirty Mermaid’ and we wanted to go with a pollution theme.”

Friesen said their piece was representative of what humans have done to the ocean. The skirt starts off as blue to look like the ocean, but then turns dark and is covered in trash to show what is happening to the ocean.

The categories within Project Run-a-Way also represent what has been happening throughout the year related to the world and to WSU. From the presidential race to the “Coded_Couture” exhibition currently in the Ulrich Museum of Art, the categories cover a broad spectrum of national and global events.

Daniela Diaz and Xochitl Zamorano created a piece that combined fashion and technology just like the “Coded_Couture” exhibit.

“We wanted to create a piece that was kind of dark and gothic, but also tied to technology to make it kind of futuristic,” said Diaz. “I’m the model and I’m wearing this dress that has lights in it as well as a cape that lights up.”

Along with the student art, music from DJ Cleme, Wichita’s Swing Dance Society and comedian Jessica Kay, who emceed, were at the event.

At the end of the night, the judges announced a winner in each category as well as a grand prize winner. Each category winner received $50 and a group exhibition at Shiftspace. The grand prize winner received $200 and a group exhibition at Shiftspace.