Take a look inside the rooms of 10 NYU Abu Dhabi students from around the globe who combine art and memories to create little slices of home. Because turning a college residence room into your new home using nothing but blue tack, posters, fairy lights and trips to IKEA can be a daunting task.
Balloons, polaroids and mounting strips make Sana’s room (pictured above) the perfect blend of fun, homely and efficient. “I’m a person with too much stuff,” she laughed. But she’s a great organizer, so everything is neatly filed away in boxes under her bed, and her preferred color scheme of red and white gives her room the designer’s touch.
And when all else fails, "Buy a rug," said USA student William Held, Class of 2019. "Rugs tie a room together."
Bring a piece of yourself from before college, just to remind yourself of who you are.
Ryan collects currency. Every single corner of every single wall in his room is covered with currency notes from more than 50 countries.
Whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, you’ll find comfort in Mia’s room. The walls are adorned by photographs of her pets, and in the center lies one of her dog, Bolly. “I wanted to make the room feel cozy,” she explained. Nothing beats kittens and puppies to make a room warm and fuzzy.
Poetry, used tea bags, chocolate wrappers, and dried flowers – Lina’s room is a miniature art museum, a spontaneous exhibition of oddities. She laughed and said, “I decided that I wanted to fill up my walls with words because that’s what I want to do with the world, and then things just happened.”
Ankita’s desk is reminiscent of a color-splashed Salvador Dali painting. She explained, “I obsessively made myself drink every single flavor of the Firefly Iced Tea you get at the Library Café just so I could collect a bottle of every color. They now stand on my desk. Hurrah!”
“I really wanted a big tree,” established Flavia when asked about her colorful choice of photographs. In addition to big trees, she also loves portraits of nature, and faces. She cites her desire to create her own space as her primary motivation behind creating this spectacular garden of art.
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Chris and William have a clock that’s also a bike. They also have “Chris’s Wall of Tickets”, William’s art pieces, and cushions made by Chris’s mom using his old sports shirts. Their prized possession, though, is their rug. William takes pride in having bargained for it himself at a souk. “Buy a rug,” he insists. “Rugs tie a room together.”
Alexander cycled by himself all the way across Canada. His room is filled with memories and souvenirs of the trip.
A tribute to the miracle of language. Diana's love of literature is clear from her walls adorned with words by Keats, Heaney, Shakespeare, Yu Guangzhong and Roald Dahl. “Whenever I cannot get a poem out of my mind, I know it deserves a place on my wall, because of how much it made me feel."
The four Frisbees marked “Ultimate Frisbee” on Ayah’s desk tell you that she’s always been an avid player of the sport. In fact, her room beautifully captures the essence of her memories of home. She had some useful advice: “Bring a piece of yourself from before college, just to remind yourself of who you are.”