In Pakistan The Phillips Collection Explores the Power of Art
New Exhibition Showcases Educational Initiative Linking Cultural Diplomacy with Art Opens August 13, 2013
Washington, D.C.— This spring, Rachel Goldberg, The Phillips Collection’s Manager of School, Outreach, and Family Programs, took her education workshops on the road, traveling to Pakistan to engage artists of all ages. Using Jacob Lawrence’s celebrated The Migration Series (1940–41) as a springboard, she sparked conversation about storytelling, collaboration, and the power of art to create social change. The results of this international exchange, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, will be on view at the Phillips from Aug. 13 through Sept. 23, 2013. Featuring the work of nearly 50 participants, as well as photography and video documenting the process, the exhibition connects cultural diplomacy, art, and education.
During her three-week stay in Pakistan in March, Goldberg engaged audiences in Lahore and Islamabad. Working with 375 participants ranging in age from five to 35, she led workshops for emerging artists, training sessions for arts educators, and hosted discussions with curators and gallery managers on best practices for engaging with their communities. She also worked with underprivileged children and orphans at the Mashal School and the SOS Village, teaching them how to use art to convey important stories from their pasts.
“This educational initiative demonstrates the profound contributions art can make to our collective cultural dialogue and how it can foster a global spirit of understanding,” says Director Dorothy Kosinski. “With the support of the U.S. Department of State, we have been able to deepen on an international level the essential work the Phillips is doing every day at the K–12 level in D.C. Public Schools and with partner schools across the country.”
Jacob Lawrence’s narrative masterpiece The Migration Series, a powerful portrayal of the 20th-century exodus of more than one million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North, was at the center of all the workshops. Emerging artists and middle and high school students used Lawrence’s work as a catalyst for conversation about the power of collaboration and storytelling, creating artwork out of tempera paint, pencils, charcoal, and paper collage materials. Participants worked together to tell stories that were important to them—some shared stories of identity and personal struggle while others recounted stories about Pakistani history. Arts educators used the museum’s award-winning Jacob Lawrence and The Migration Series Teaching Kit to brainstorm ways to integrate the arts into their classrooms. Gallery and museum professionals learned about the Phillips’s dynamic exhibitions and programming and considered new ways to implement their own community outreach programs and meet the needs of potential audiences.
“Throughout this experience, I was struck by how similar we all are,” says Goldberg. “The details of personal stories in Pakistan may be different than those I’ve encountered in my work in the United States, but many of the themes are universal—life can be very hard, understanding history is important, and sometimes we have to make great sacrifices to create a better life.”
Goldberg visited Pakistan on one of the U.S. Embassy’s professional exchange programs, which brings highly-skilled professionals from the United States to work with their counterparts in Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan sponsors the largest exchange program in the world, with over 1,000 Pakistani students and professionals traveling to the United States and dozens of Americans traveling to Pakistan each year.
EDUCATING THROUGH ART AT THE PHILLIPS
The Phillips Collection’s award-winning education programs inspire creativity, foster a greater understanding of our world, and provide lifelong learning experiences for more than 200,000 children, teachers, and families annually in Washington, D.C., and across the country. The Phillips pushes the boundaries of K–12 education with its Jacob Lawrence and The Migration Series Teaching Kit and Prism of Arts Integration Teaching Framework, a program that supports teachers of any subject as they develop arts-integrated lessons and curricula. Arts integration—linking art to core curriculum subjects such as science, math, social studies, and language arts— is a nationally-recognized educational approach cited by the President’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities as having been used “in a number of very successful long-term programs to expand arts opportunities, engage students more deeply in learning content, and as an effective school reform strategy.” Phillips programs provide teachers and students with high-quality, in-depth training, resources, classroom workshops, museum tours, transportation, and Young Artists Exhibitions designed to foster self expression and empowerment.