Student Exhibition: Responding To... Making a Home

Works by students from Explorations Academy and The Berkeley Carroll School

January 4 - 11, 2008

The student artwork shown here represents the culmination of the multi-program Responding To... Making a Home. High school students from Explorations Academy and The Berkeley Carroll School investigated cultural, technical and art historical topics related to the Japan Society Gallery exhibition, Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York. Students analyzed representations of “home,” a examined references to specific aspects of Japanese culture in selected works and explored the concept and construction of identity.

Students began their study of Making a Home with a preview and introductory discussion of the themes of the exhibition led by Japan Society educators Suzanne de Vegh and Victoria Moller at their schools. This was followed by a visit to the Japan Society Gallery where they received a tour of Making a Home with the exhibition’s curator, Eric C. Shiner and participated in gallery lessons. Hiroshi Sunairi, an artist included in Making a Home, visited Berkeley Carroll and Explorations Academy to guide the studio art project. 

During the studio art project, each student chose an iconic symbol to represent a personal ideal or aspiration and made a clay vessel in that shape. The students returned to Japan Society to plant the seeds of hibaku trees (trees that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945) in their vessels as part of a larger long-term peace project.

Photographs of Student Work

Clockwise from left in each photo:

Kyle Castro, Ava Loi Anderson, Darrin Barker

"The design was the most difficult part. I picked this design because it represents what I want to become; a basketball player. I hope my art gets to be put in an art gallery." - Darrin Barker




Amber Anderson, Terry Lawson, Shikeena Palmer

"The clay when I was working with it was soft and somewhat smooth. I started by carving a ball shape at the top. I made it because I want to become a singer. It is an honor to have seeds from Hiroshima planted in something that I made." – Terry Lawson