First-Year Exhibition: Art and Community Building
A year-long creative journey
If in college, learning usually happens in the classroom, first-year students experienced the joy of breaking free from the traditional mold by exhibiting their work to a wider audience! The “RE MAKE: Critical Dialogues” show marks the culmination of their work from two of their core classes from the Fall, Integrative Studio 1 and Seminar 1. As it happens, every Fall students create a remake of an existing artwork or designed artefact and in the Spring, an open call invites volunteers to exhibit in a public setting.
In the Spring semester, first-year students had the opportunity to apply to a one-week long exhibition presenting a selection of their recreations at Galerie45, the school’s gallery located on Rue Saint-Roch. Indeed, this experience marks a turning point in their learning experience as they present their works and research to an external audience.
Experiential Learning
“The exhibition was very well curated and organized, making it a great experience for both guests and students. We were always provided with guidance and support, which I really appreciated, it made everything run smoothly” Mira, SDM major
“RE MAKE: Critical Dialogues” is a celebration of the students’ hard work and artistic voices. Moreover, this experience helps build a wide spectrum of professional skills and competencies:
- Work ethics and autonomy, as they are responsible for applying and meeting deadlines,
- Art and design as generators and transmitters of cultural ideas, as curating a show in a multicultural environment,
- Flexibility and resiliency, as they adapted to production-related constraints,
- Interpersonal communication, as they mediated their work through writing and to a live audience during the opening.
Guided by Anne Attal, a multidisciplinary artist and set designer who teaches Integrative Studio 1, and First Year Program co-Director Emmanuel Cohen, volunteers experimented with different ways to install their work. Additionally, students collaborated on the opening program where one performance and one collaborative work were activated. In some cases, the exhibition provided students with the opportunity to reflect on their project and “remake” it to fit the new space and display constraints.
“I really enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with classmates outside of the usual classroom setting and seeing strangers’ reactions to my artwork. It was great to learn how the behind the scenes of a gallery exhibition work and see how different perspectives contributed to the final outcome.” Nathalie, FD major
Interdisciplinary Thinking and Making in Action
The First Year Curriculum fosters interdisciplinary thinking and practices by mixing students from the three majors at Parsons Paris (BFAs Art, Media, and Technology, and Fashion Design, and BBA Strategic Design and Management) in core classes. The exhibition is one of the outside-of-the-classroom activities where students unique skill sets are used in a less structured set up. Indeed, everyone can contribute, and all artistic sensitivities are welcomed. No matter what their hard or soft skills are, students can experiment and challenge themselves to create an event accessible to the rest of the school as well as external audiences. Lastly, the opening reinforces a sense of community belonging as faculty, staff and students from all years show up.
Get a glimpse at our first-year students’ remakes below! And discover their inspirations and thought-processes in this digital booklet!
A Peak into the Exhibition Booklet
To accompany the exhibition, a booklet was created. It contains glimpses of the initial research material from Integrative Seminar 1, such as a description or interpretation of the original work. Students also included a short statement to shed light on their intention. You can discover some of those below:
