Community Collaborations

The Addison Education department has a deep commitment to the “reading” of artworks. At the basis of much of what we do with classes is the belief that images, just like written texts, tell a story and communicate an idea. The department has been delving further into that idea in preparation and research for the spring exhibitions. Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography, In Character: Artists’ Role Play in Photography And Video, and Life Lines: Elizabeth Enders all deal with aspects of literature and the written word. Day’s role as a publisher and noted bibliophile, as well as the cultural and literary references that bubble up in In Character only further solidify the theme of images as visual text, used to communicate ideas and philosophies. Enders’ artwork addresses more abstract themes that relate to the written word through mark-making and gestural lines. Therefore, it’s only natural, or so we think, that the Addison Gallery of American Art has teamed up with the Memorial Hall Library for two collaborations.

March marks Memorial Hall Library’s Genealogy month. As part of Genealogy month programming, on March 13^th, residents of Andover joined together in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center to discuss some portraits that help unravel the mystery of the Addison Gallery’s namesakes as well as critically analyze their own family portraits. Participants were asked to bring family portraits and photographs while the Addison contributed portraits of the Addison family along with a range of family portraits from the permanent collection. The evening began with sharing from the education department on how curators and scholars have “read” the Addison’s portraiture to find out more about the Addison family and the connection between the painted ancestors and the woman for whom the gallery was named. After learning how scholars read portraits to define characteristics and people, the group worked together to investigate traits and characteristics of sitters in the other family portraits. Finally participants shared and spoke about the photographs and portraits they brought along using some of the techniques practiced with the educator.

The Addison education department is also hosting an event in collaboration with the Memorial Hall Library’s AndoverReads program. Inspired by Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, the Addison will be inviting community members to investigate artworks in the permanent collection that incorporate interesting uses of color. The narrator in The Book Thief often alludes to color as a way to describe an emotion, feeling, or to describe people and landscapes. Join us on April 25^th for a participatory discussion in the Museum Learning Center. For more information or to RSVP (space is limited) please refer to the Memorial Hall Library event calendar.

A New Year Celebrated with Music

Happy New Year from the Addison education team. A new year means new programs, new exhibitions, and new parties. The year kicked off with an exciting event organized by and for Phillips Academy students. As the museum bid farewell to the fall exhibitions, The Courant (Phillips Academy’s literary magazine) hosted a semi-formal issue launch featuring writers and performers from the student community and the galleries were filled with the experimental sounds of Tristan Perich and Lesley Flanigan.

Apsara Iyer, a Phillips Academy senior, came to the Addison education team in the fall with the intention to collaborate on a social and cultural event specifically planned for students and co-hosted by the The Courant. Coinciding with the publishing of this season’s Courant, and fashioned after book and magazine launches of years gone by, the backdrop of elaborate food and dress would provide just the right amount of sparkle and pizzazz to make the Fete Du Courant an extra special party and provide yet another way for students to interact with the museum beyond their classes.

Held on January 13^th, the evening began with a series of readings from Courant contributors followed by questions from the audience in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center. Out in the galleries, DJs flooded the museum with a wide variety of music to set the tone of the party and students posed in the library “photobooth” displaying their copies of the new issue (which itself was appropriately adorned with a bow-tie). To cap off a wonderful evening full of arts of all kind, three students performed acoustic guitar sets in the brand new Open Windows exhibition. The education department looks forward to more student-organized events that connect with and celebrate the museum’s exhibitions and mission.

Music seems to be a theme in the galleries this month. On January 25^th, the same gallery that hosted three Phillips Academy students again became a music venue for the works of Tristan Perich and Lesley Flanigan. Perich, a former Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence and PA student from the class of 2000, presented his composition Dual Synthesis for harpsichord (performed by Oberlin College student Daniel Walden) and 4-channel 1-bit electronics. Flanigan was joined by four PA students for Amplifications, a haunting five-part harmony augmented by the handmade wooden speakers Flanigan uses to create feedback and looping. Video from both performances is forthcoming, please check back!

It has been wonderful warming up the museum with music these past few weeks as New England finally gets a bit of the winter chill it is so well known for. The education department looks forward to filling up the new exhibitions with students and teachers in the coming weeks and months to explore the winter exhibitions John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury, Land, Sea, and Sky: Contemporary Art in Maine, The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues and a salon-style hanging of works from the permanent collection. Hope to see you in the galleries soon!

Posted by: Katherine Ziskin, Education Fellow for School & Community Collaborations

Explorations of The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues to Continue Through the Winter Season

Groups from on and off campus, including students, teachers, and many public visitors, have integrated the Addison’s exhibition The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues into explorations, conversations, projects, and curricula throughout the fall, and we’re excited to announce that these collaborations will continue as the exhibition will remain on view through April 15, 2012!

Just as The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues explores the varying perspectives, both historical and contemporary, that compose the evolving narrative of this seminal event, the connections made by various groups compose a larger picture about the possible impact of these explorations on curriculum and historical thinking.

Phillips Academy US History classes explored images by such artists as Alexander Gardner and Winslow Homer as primary source documents and researched themes illuminated in the exhibition. Digging deep into topics such as race relations to the impact of technology on the making of Civil War images, students led their own tours of the exhibition for their peers. (Image credit: Alexander Gardner, Abraham Lincoln in 1863, albumen print, gift of Peter Schrager (PA 1945), Addison Gallery of American Art)

Phillips Academy English classes explored questions of which historical events are commemorated, how, and from whose perspective. Journalism classes connected the roots of photojournalism present in the Civil War photographs and newspapers with the current state of media images and ethics. A philosophy and religious studies class used the work of contemporary artists Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon to spark conversations about oppression and resistance. (Image credit: Kara Walker, Exodus of Confederates from Atlanta, from Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2005, offset lithograph with screenprint, purchased as the gift of Katherine and Stephen C. Sherrill (PA 1971), Addison Gallery of American Art)

Middle and high school history classes from public schools in the Merrimack Valley and Boston have joined us to explore The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues and the related Addison fall exhibition, RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered: Photographs by Paul Fusco to discuss what images can reveal about United States history. One high school’s literature, visual art, and history classes visited concurrently and discussed the subjectivity of recorded history and how we construct our interpretations of these documentations, thereby constructing our own understandings of history.

Teachers and adult groups have also explored and contextualized this exhibition, including a public gallery talk led by Assistant Curator Jaime DeSimone and Phillips Academy Instructor in History and Social Science Christopher Jones. Teachers from the local community and beyond participated in workshops in which they were asked to draw inspiration from the fall exhibitions in designing a commemoration to honor a local, national, or historic event while considering the impact and implications of asking students to participate in history.

We look forward to continuing these conversations and starting many more as The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues continues and as the new winter exhibitions open in late January.

Posted by:
Jamie Kaplowitz,
Education Associate and Museum Learning Specialist