We Hear Student Voices — Person of the Crowd High School Project
Walking into Overbrook High School was like entering a castle on the hill; the building is a massive one that even from the outside appears to have so much history. I am excited to offer Overbrook students a platform for making history now with the Barnes Foundation. As the Director or PreK-12 Programs, I have had the pleasure of working with different schools in Philadelphia on grant-funded projects. This project got started late last year when I approached art teacher Kim Gavin about partnering with them for a new special exhibition called Person of the Crowd. Kim mentioned that the arts were having a resurgence at Overbrook and that a multi-visit immersive project would fit with her goals for piquing student interest in art.
For this project, students would be asked to take on the role of a flaneur, a wanderer who takes to the streets to respond to the urban environment. This idea builds off of the 19th century tradition of the flaneur where a male dandy would stroll the streets of Paris and observe the city. For a 21st century twist on the flaneur, Overbrook students will work with Man Bartlett, the artist in residence for this exhibition, to collaborate on a project entitled We Are/ We See/ We Hear. Students will participate in the “We Hear” portion of the project by using video and flaneuring to capture impressions of Philadelphia. Since this is the first time that student work will be incorporated into a special exhibition at the Barnes, this was an incredible opportunity for a student voice in the work at the Barnes. I was immeasurably excited to talk with the students about this project and set the stage for working with Man.
My first visit to Overbrook was to talk with students about the Barnes and our 19th and early 20th century collection of paintings and sculptures. Since the work with Man would involve video, I wanted to discover their thoughts first on traditional media. In a brainstorming exercise, they used images of African masks and early European modern paintings by Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani to compose their own gallery wall of art. They discussed how the art responds to and echo one another when assembled in an arrangement. To them, a wall display could tell the story of a family or of social hierarchy depending on how you arranged the work.
I then asked them about performance art and shared with them artwork from artists who would appear in the Person of the Crowd exhibition: Sandford Biggers and Marina Abramovic as well as work by Man Bartlett.
Students listed to Bartlett’s Raga Project, a 24-loop of continuous sound. Students were truly compelled by the idea of the project being in several different locations and how the sound would seem different depending on who you were with or what you were experiencing when you heard the sounds. Like the ideas of the wall displays at the Barnes, your experience or interpretation depends on what you have assembled for your experience with the work. One student thought that Raga viewed by the water would be the most powerful because you had the sense of being near the water and it would really bring out your sight, hearing, smell, etc… Another thought that Raga at the train tracks would be the most powerful because you would see trains nearby and additional people.
We discussed how they would be using video with Man the following week. Students were very keen to experience something with a real working artist and that their voices would be incorporated into an artwork at the Barnes. Stay tuned to find out how the students responded to working directly with the artist.
