Theodore Vadot ’19
Susan Coote, the curator of Episcopal’s Crawford Campus Center Gallery, has been working hard with the Diversity Awareness and PRISM clubs, among others, to organize a workshop in the gallery space.
Exhibition Lab, the intended name for the workshop, will be an open workspace and meeting space for anyone to visit and participate by adding their own art. Coote explains, “The Exhibition Lab is a place to hold meetings, hang out, meet each other and express ourselves.” Originally, the Lab was going to be organized for February of 2019. However, it has now been moved to the 2019-2020 school year, not only to allow more time for the student body to know about it, but also to allow more time to carefully plan it. Ayinde Tate, Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Episcopal, states, “Preferably, I would want it to be in another month than February. I don’t want it to be seen as being solely focused on Black History Month.” The intention of the gallery is to celebrate all kinds of diversity and to have an open-minded space for all ideas. Therefore it shouldn’t be in a month like Black History Month. Tate adds, “I don’t want the attention of this lab to be Black History Month instead of its original concept as an exhibition lab.”
The Exhibition Lab is a place for anyone to display their art as well as a place for people to have conversations or simply hang out. Coote asserts, “Art shows can be powerful– artists bring a powerful way of communicating.” This ideology is what fuels the concept behind the Exhibition Lab: the unique strength of art as a form of communication. “For example, I live in South Philly and I see the Mummers every year, but the [Andrea Modica] show I just saw made me see them in a completely different way,” Tate concurs.
David Sigel, arts department chair and visual arts teacher, stresses, “[The art teachers] always make sure our studios are open-minded, judgment-free studios, and the idea is that an environment like that could be attained in the gallery and everyone could express themselves with their own art, no matter how experienced.”
Given that the Exhibition Lab is likely to take place in the 2019-2020 school year, it will continue to be advertised in the hopes that more artists and other students can be influenced to participate and enjoy the open space. Coote emphasizes: “Let’s work with artists who speak to the important issues and ideas that students and teachers bring forward.”