The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recognized eight students that were receiving Master of Fine Arts degrees with 'Eight Artists Here and Now,' an exhibition that was at the Ackland. The exhibition served as a thesis for master's degree candidates in the department and includes works in a variety of media such as paintings, sculptures, and mixed media installations.
The work's common thread perhaps was "the desire to go beyond the idea of a work of art as a single object with distinct boundaries," said Timothy Riggs, the Ackland's assistant director at the time. Some artists used found object, such as Deschamps' fragments of the natural world, Michael Knoch's artificial iron pebbles from the lining of roadsides, or Daniel Adams' and Linda Hall's combinations of the natural and artificial worlds. Jacob Cooley's paintings appeared to be traditional landscapes, but were actually numerous paintings of a single place, designed to surround the viewer with multiple views of a single twilight landscape.
In conjunction with the show, the student artists participated in forums at the museum.