Smithsonian Peacock Printmaking Project
A summer collaboration with the Smithsonian Freer Art Gallery and Corcoran faculty to create a print installation and catalog of two-dimensional “conflict vases” inspired by James McNeil Whistler’s Peacock Room in the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Darren Watterson’s Filthy Lucre exhibition. Graduate students from George Washington University and Ward 7 and 8 High School students explored themes around conflict, inventive/destructive forces, and private/public space identified in the exhibition. The print installation went on view at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery on the National Mall.
George Washington University + ArtReach
Screenprinting
ArtReach teens and graduate students from the George Washington University worked with the Corcoran printmaking faculty during a three week artist residency. The class investigated the emotional tension behind Whistler’s mural of fighting peacocks installed inside the peacock room at the Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art. Drawing parallels to their own lives, each participant explored personal stories of conflict and represented these experiences on screen printed vases that were exhibited in a collaborative installation at the Smithsonian Freer Gallery.
Museum Visit
ArtReach teens met the George Washington University graduate students at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery on the National Mall where they received a private tour with the Freer’s curator of American Art.
Students examined artwork through cultural, historical, and philosophical contexts. While critiquing the aesthetic values of artwork, they also investigated the geographical, political, and economic influences for enhanced cross-cultural understanding. Each student was encouraged to contribute their own perspectives and experiences as a means of understanding and interpreting work.
Teaching
The interdisciplinary curricular connections provided participants with arts-based, civically engaged research opportunities that motivate faculty, museum staff, and students to design community engagement experiences locally, nationally, and internationally in ways that enhance and benefit students, faculty and community development.
Pre-serviceGraduate students participated in the program along with the ArtReach teens, created screen prints, and were mentored through leading lessons aligned with the project.
