Projects

Student Publication: Keywords on Division

Students from exhibition curator and Postdoctoral Writing Fellow Paul M. Farber’s writing seminars “Memory, Monuments, and Urban Space” and “Cultural Approaches to Divided Cities” worked with artist-in-residence Nilay Lawson to produce Keywords on Division, a collection of essays using Berlin as a starting point to consider sites of division across the world.

Lawson writes in her artist statement for the catalogue, “The book contains many questions, and many more paths that could lead to collective nourishment in the face of enduring divisions. My hope is that readers may follow their lines of inquiry to push outward from the exhibition, and that the writers would encounter this years later as an artifact or reminder to think critically, and maintain an ethos of shared presence and imaginative belonging.”

BORDERLAND Karen Mondaca ’18
INTERSTATE Andrew Chalfoun ’18
REVITALIZATION Jessie Lamworth ’18
PUBLIC Freda Coren ’17
VOID John Halifax ’18
DIASPORA Catheline Phan ’18
UNIVERSITY CITY HIGH SCHOOL Sarah Green ’18
ACCOUNTABILITY Alliyah Allen ’18
BERLIN WALL Danny Rothschild ’15

DESIGN AND CONCEPT Nilay Lawson
STUDENT EDITOR Dylan Kahn ’16
RESEARCH Sarah Green ’18

Download Publication (.pdf)

The Split that is Echoed in Numerous Ways: Transdivisional Student Exhibition

As part of The Wall in Our Heads, five Haverford faculty members directed their students to complete projects riffing off works or texts associated with the exhibition. These works were then displayed as part of a temporary exhibition from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 9th, 2015 throughout Haverford’s Whitehead Campus Center. Special thanks to Matthew Seamus Callinan, Christine Dickerson, Hina Fathima, and the staff of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery for their work in the installation of this exhibition.

Sculpture: Materials and Techniques
Markus Baenziger (Fine Arts)

Students were asked to reflect on exhibition artist Jonathan Borofsky’s essay for The Wall in Our Heads catalogue and create sculptures inspired by the text.

Interlocked
Keri Godbe ’16

To Be One Again
Miji Ryu ’16

WalkThrough
Isabella Dorfman ’17

A Baby Lying on Rubble Here Taking the Shape of a Hospital Bed
Isabella Falla ’18

Among the Pieces
Liandra A. Curtis ’16

Wolfpack
Ashlee Williams ’16

Post-Wall German Film & Intermediate German
Imke Brust (German)

The Split that is Echoed in Numerous Ways Transdivisional Student Exhibition

Students in the courses “Intermediate German” and “Post-Wall German film” were asked to create short film projects in light of the 25th anniversary of the German reunification and in response to the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery’s art exhibition’s theme The Wall in Our Heads. In class, we talked about the Cold War and relevant historical events leading up to the building and fall of the German-German border (wall and fence) and also the different identities that East and West Germans developed as a result of growing up in these diverging ideological systems.

Communication Across the Wall: Three Personal Stories
Angela Blatz ’16, Shaquana Drury ’19, Rachel Davies ’16

Ostalgie: Memories Before the Fall
Nicholas Ott ’16, Stephany Prodromos ’19, Daobo Wang ’19, Ryan Kopelowicz ’18

The Weißwurst Equator
Kevin Liao ’18, Marina Mundo ’18, Dora von Trentini ’18

Der Verfall (The Decay)
William Raff ’18, Tu Erica Luan ’18, Joshua Hilscher ’18

Berlin 1961
Josiah Legaspi ’18, Brad Morbeck ’18, Dylan Verner-­Crist ’16

Die Chiralität der Socken / The Chirality of Socks
Geoffrey Martin-­Noble ’16, Charlotte Colantti ’18, Alexander Milder ’18

Die Beiden Seiten der Berliner Mauer / Both Sides of the Berlin Wall
Hassan Ahamed ’19, Maëlys Glück ’19

Wunderwall – Die Kunst der Mauer / Wonderwall – The Art of the Wall
Sasha Rogelberg ’19, Xiaoran Yuan ’18, Jenny Ahn ’17

Transnational Crossings
Paul M. Farber (Writing Program)

Students were asked to create critical writing posters, written as collaborative assignments focusing on legacies, implications, and lessons from the history and memory of the Berlin Wall. Designed by visiting artist Nilay Lawson.

Borderlands
Gasira Timir ’19, Kirsten Mullin ’19, Andrew Eaddy ’19, Caroline Henry ’19

Branded
Justin Hiemstra ’19, Elana Kates ’19, and Max Krieg ’19

Futility
Zack Cohen ’19, Ryan Dukarm ’19, Emily Williams ’19, Kevin Xu ’19

Identity
Ben Forde ’19, Ryan Tetro ’19, Rachel Wolfson ’19

(Im)Permanence
Mike Carr ’19, Alex Clark ’19, Lizzy Culp ’19

Movement
Zhanar Irgebayeva ’19, Ellen Schoder ’19, Aaron Sterngass ’19

Stage
Faith Danglo ’19, Max Kauderer ’19, and Alissa Valentine ’19

Introduction to Documentary Video Production
Vicky Funari (Documentary Film)

Students in the course Introduction to Documentary Video Production were challenged to create a project that engaged with the thematics of The Wall in Our Heads, particularly exhibition artist Jonathan Borofsky’s catalogue essay.

A Day In The Life of A Muslim
Ayesha Mir ’16

The Unsaid
Christina Stella ’17, Ayesha Mir ’16, Natalie Difrank ’17

Two Worlds, One Plate
Zixin Zeng ’18, Hangcheng Xu ’19, Rachel Brodie ’19

Late Night
Natalie DiFrank ’17, Leah Jarvik ’19

Relationships With the Invisible
Stephanie Histon ’18, Pan Hu ’16

Red
Katie Rodgers ’18

Finding Home
Ayesha Mir ’16, Zichu Zhao ’18

Body/Document
Nishat Hossain ’18

Imagining Other Futures: Art, Poetry, and Social Change
John Hyland (Writing Program)

Students explored and wrote about the intersection of politics and aesthetics through the lens of social division with two components: a group art project where they collaboratively conceptualized a work of art and an individually written paper where they made an argument on the issue of aesthetics and politics that, alongside the texts, was based on their experiences with the group art project. The assignment included a preliminary proposal as well as a written manifesto.

Consuming Division: A Slice of Cake
Vanessa Morales ’19, Rachel Brodie ’19, David Parker ’19, Paige Parker ’19

Take Your Seat
Olivia Graziano ’19, Kofi Kwakwa ’19, Katie Cook ’19, Mary Kearney-Brown ’19

Compendium of Community: Magnetism and the Critical Mass
Elena Harriss-Bauer ’19, Jacob Ludwig ’19, Liam Lynch ’19

Loosely Pinned
Joseph Alejandro ’19, Jason Bravo ’19, Sophie Frank ’19, Andrew Nguyen ’19

The Polar(oid) Divide
Younghee Hahn ’19, Alie Lin ’19, Antonio Gil ’19, Opal Bednarik ’19

#KnowFilter
Nicky Rhodes ’19, Joseph Scibelli ’19, Ali Weiner ’19, Ryan Hill ’19

The Wall in Our Heads Portrait Series

As part of Haverford iteration of The Wall in Our Heads, photographer Caleb Eckert ’17 was commissioned to document all programming growing out of the exhibition and supported by the College’s new Initiative in Ethical Engagement and Leadership. Presented here is a series of select portraits taken by Eckert documenting the many people—students, staff, faculty, artists, scholars, activists, members of the community, and others—who made The Wall in Our Heads possible.

Student Publication meeting with Nilay Lawson for The Wall in Our Heads.
Vita Litvak hangs artists’ work for The Wall in Our Heads.
Matthew Callinan installs artists’ work for The Wall in Our Heads.
Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for the New York Times.
Paul Farber, curator of The Wall in Our Heads and Postdoctoral Writing Fellow, at the exhibition opening.
(L-R) Gallery Assistants for The Wall in Our Heads: Dylan Kahn ’16, Pia Chakraverti-Wuerthwein ’16, Kelly (Hyunjin) Jung ’17, Evan Hamilton ’17, Mia Rybeck ’17, Alexandria (Yuhuizi) Wang BMC ’16, Morgan Chien-Hale ’18, Courtney Carter ’17 Sofia Vivado ’16.
Elke Susannah Freed, daughter of photographer Leonard Freed, stands by one of her father’s photographs exhibited in The Wall in Our Heads.
(L-R) Artists James Huckenpahler and Nilay Lawson stand by their respective works in The Wall in Our Heads.
Penny Von Eschen.
Imke Brust, Assistant Professor of German, at The Wall in Our Heads Faculty Conversation & Walkthrough.
Nimisha Ladva, Visiting Assistant Professor of English, at The Wall in Our Heads Faculty Conversation & Walkthrough.
Homay King, Associate Professor of History of Art at Bryn Mawr, at The Wall in Our Heads Faculty Conversation & Walkthrough.
(L-R) Courtney Carter ’17 and Sofia Vivado ’16 at Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections.
(L-R) Keir Johnston, Mark Strandquist, Jessica Solomon, Shira Walinsky, and Ernel Martinez at the Transforming Division panel.
(L-R) Hope M. Harrison and Axel Klausmeier.
(L-R) Rachel Davies ’16 and Jason Bravo ’19 interacting with a class project Bravo worked on at the Transdivisional Student Exhibition.

Science Leadership Academy Gallery Visit

On Tuesday, December 1st, 60 high school students from Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy (SLA) visited the Haverford campus, participating in a gallery workshop with exhibition curator and Postdoctoral Writing Fellow Paul M. Farber’s writing seminars and the student staffs of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery and the Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities. Working with these Haverford peer leaders, the Science Leadership Academy students were asked to select two exhibition artworks and imagine their relation through story, shape, medium, color, and feeling, recording their thoughts on the worksheets shown below. Back at school, SLA teacher Pearl Jonas asked her students to read one essay from the exhibition’s student Keywords on Division catalogue and then write a letter responding to the author.

Photos by Ruiyi Yuan.

Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections

Students, professors, and staff participated in an interactive The Wall in Our Heads card game in which the cards were replicas of the artworks on display and the players took turns making connections between their own hands and their teammates’. Using their own observations, associations, and interpretations, the players successfully made connections between artworks and reached conclusions about the exhibition as a whole. CFG assistant Courtney Carter ’17 helped facilitate this activity.

(L-R) Courtney Carter ’17, Sofia Vivado ’16, HCAH Programs & Administrative Manager Emily Cronin, and Evan Hamilton ’17 at Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections.
(L-R) Courtney Carter ’17 and Sofia Vivado ’16 at Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections.
An attendee holds a print-out of a photograph by Allen Frame at Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections.
Attendees arrange print-outs of gallery pieces from The Wall in Our Heads at Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections.
(L-R) Curator & Postdoctoral Writing Fellow Paul Farber, Esme Trontz ’18, James Burvant ’16, Courtney Carter ’17 at Crosslisted: Dangerous Connections.

Transforming Division: Notes on Social Change

Local activists and artists Keir Johnston (Amber Art & Design), Ernel Martinez (Amber Art & Design), Jessica Solomon MSOD (Executive Director, Art in Praxis). Mark Strandquist (People’s Paper Co-op/Village of Arts & Humanities), and Shira Walinksy (City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program/ Southeast by Southeast) discussed their practices, learned about Haverford student and faculty projects and challenges, and discussed tools for creative action. HCAH student assistant Esme Trontz ’17 helped produce these working notes from the session.

Artist Shira Walinsky talks about her work at the Transforming Division panel.
(L-R) Artists Ernel Martinez and Keir Johnston talk about their work at the Transforming Division panel.
Artist Mark Strandquist talks about his work at the Transforming Division panel.
Art in Praxis Executive Director Jessica Solomon talks about her work at the Transforming Division panel.
(L-R) Keir Johnston, Shira Walinsky, Mark Strandquist, Ernel Martinez, Jessica Solomon, and Paul Farber discuss at the Transforming Division panel.
Esme Trontz ’18 (left) writes notes on a dry-erase board.
(L-R) Sarah Green ’18 and Filmmaker and Professor of Independent College Programs Vicky Funari at the Transforming Division panel.
Catheline Phan ’18 in conversation at the Transforming Division panel.

TOOLS WE HAVE

  • Broadcasting platforms – Communities Self-Empower
    Facebook, Instagram Twitter, DIY publicity
  • Ability to listen (in person and online)
  • Community members
  • Ability to create art
  • Relationships + partnerships—artists can’t do everything!
  • Institutional support
  • Conversations/world of mouth
  • Taking art out of the galleries and into communities to bridge people and art
  • Networks with similar institutions
  • Resources to create on your own (to some extent)
  • Self-reflection
  • Thinking about/articulating your own concerns
  • Human to human

TOOLS WE NEED

  • Leadership team with specific roles
  • For students to understand that “art” doesn’t have to be “good”
  • More public appreciation and recognition / less intimidation
  • People
  • Meaningful space
  • Time (to work, learn, build relationships, self-care, archive)
  • Clear path for our art
  • Fund organizations to teach about projects
  • Real community engagement
  • Institutional support
  • Conversations
  • Mapping and identification
  • Documentation (someone else to do it!)
  • Ways to expose stories without exploiting their tellers
  • Way to engage the people in the communities
  • Specific events and frameworks