Jessica Bai ’16, Sarah Barr ’16: “What I Do, Where I Go,” is the title of the new art exhibit that will open in EA’s gallery this fall. Located on the second floor of the Crawford Campus Center, the gallery will be abundant with a wide variety of artistic mediums from the EA community. Susan Coote, a volunteer member of the Arts Department at EA, has received submissions from students, faculty, and staff that vary from videos and photographs to paintings and sculptures.
“[“What I Do, Where I Go”] is definitely something worth going up and taking a look. It’s very fun. Everyone seems to get into the spirit of it and the things that people have submitted definitely show a little part of themselves that they may not have time to show during the year. When you see people’s work, you get to know them a little bit better,” stated Coote. Mike Letts, V Form Dean, said “I think it’s a fabulous vehicle for our students and faculty to exhibit their art.” Alexis Reape ’16, added, “Art is exciting and an important part of life at Episcopal.”\
The “What I Do, Where I Go” exhibition is part of a grand project called “do it,” a show and idea of renowned international curator, Hans Ulrich Olbrist. “The history of ‘do it’ is that [Olbrist] was sitting down with his friends, two artists, and they decided to talk about creating an art show that would be ongoing and consist of a list of instructions that well-known artists, his friends, would create,” Coote explained. Every venue that takes on the show will choose a set of instructions from this “list” and each individual venue would decide how to enact those instructions. “Over the years,” said Coote, “‘do it’ has evolved as a show and many different venues have done it many different ways and the number of artist instructions has increased to over 200 official artist instructions. There’s a book called Do It Compendium with all the artist instructions in it that I actually have at my desk in the Arts Department Office. Anybody is welcome to come and take a look at it.” The Art Department will choose instructions and deliver them to EA throughout the year. Some of the instructions are very conceptual like “Smile at a Stranger.” These instructions will also be put on a website where anyone in the EA community can ponder about what their true meanings are. A conspicuous change from last year’s science gallery, the “do it” program will require both artists and viewers to delve deeper into their artistic selves. “It’s complicated but very cool. The set of instructions is about interpretation of the instructions and the action of carrying them out. It should generate a lot of discussion about what is art,” said Coote. “In March, we will be having a gallery show that is very much like the first “’do it’” show where we’ll carry out instructions and fill up the gallery with the results of what we do.”
With a group called the Independent Curators International (ICI), EA is co-curating “do it” as an institutional show. “There are tons and tons of venues who have taken the show on, but we’re the first K-12 school that has done this. We’re really breaking ground with this exhibition. We will essentially be creating a template for schools like us to do it,” stated Coote.
“I think it’s great that students and faculty can explore the mediums that interest them in a collaborative setting,” expressed Tony Herman, member of the English Department. “Sometimes,” he elaborated, “I think [students and teachers] are doing separate things, but when you bring them all together it’s a cool mashup.” Damon Kuzemka, member of the History Department added, “I am excited and looking forward to checking [the gallery] out.” Coote noted the variety of input and dialogue from different departments at EA as the best part of the gallery. “There is an opportunity for people who don’t necessarily think about art to think about it and really step into a different, creative way of thinking about what is important to them.”