YI Summer: the Studio Museum in Harlem
Jul 23, 2014
YI Summer participants getting to know Expanding the Walls teens, July 2014. Photograph by Correna Cohen
On July 23, Youth Insights teens visited the Studio Museum in Harlem on 125th Street.. We were greeted by Gerald Leavell and the members of the Studio Museum’s teen program, Expanding the Walls. To settle in, Youth Insights and Expanding the Walls arranged ourselves into two lines facing each other. The objective of the game was to introduce ourselves while the person in front of us did the same. Every minute or so, people shifted to a new partner, and at the end, we all crowded around to reflect what our brains remembered during the overlapped conversations.
The Studio Museum’s Gerald Leavell explaining the getting to know you game, July 2014. Photograph by Correna Cohen
The Studio Museum is dedicated to exhibiting and promoting artwork by artists of African descent. We were able to see the great works of Charles Gaines in Gridwork which is on view through October 26. The ETW teens guided us through the exhibition, challenging us to find works that highlighted “movement, passage of time, and process” and led a discussion about Gaines’s use of numbers and equations in his work.
Exploring the Charles Gaines exhibition at the Studio Museum, July 2014. Photograph by Correna Cohen
Expanding the Walls (ETW) is an annual eight-month teen program that provides an opportunity for teens to explore the world of photography through gallery visits and workshops led by contemporary artists. The ETW teens also select photographs by renowned photographer James VanDerZee from the Studio Museum’s collection and create and exhibit their own photographs with these selections. Resonating with VanDerZee’s work in an exhibition titled Vantage Point, the teens’ photographs addressed themes ranging from personal heroes to childhood to social struggles.
YI Participant Ashley offers her interpretation of Vantage Point, July 2014. Photograph by Correna Cohen
Finally Leavell handed everyone a postcard and asked us to jot down one thing we would like to share with someone else, such as a song, a favorite book, or a sight to see. Leavell then instructed everyone to pass their postcard to someone unfamiliar. In a similar spirit to the activity, teen programs like Youth Insights and Expanding the Walls have many things to share.
By Juliana, YI Summer Participant