On Thursday, March 7, the 2024 Sights on Site art show opened at the Arch Street Meeting House. The show featured art from students in all three divisions (Lower, Middle, and Upper School) and focused on the Arch Street Meeting House’s building, exterior, and history. The show closed last Friday, April 12th, after a month-long exhibition.
Margaret Smith, Director of City Curriculum, was crucial to Sights on Site’s success. “Our students have so much familiarity with the Race Street Meeting House, so it was really great working with the Arch Street Meeting House,” says Margaret. The importance of Arch Street Meeting House to Friends Select was a central point of the show, according to Margaret. “We wanted people to think about what the future of this space holds.”
Upper School art students created pieces focused on the physical spaces of the Arch Street Meeting House. Adi Perelman ‘24 enjoyed her time working in the space. “The sun was beaming in and it was really gorgeous,” says Adi. “It’s really different to be in the meeting house when it’s empty.”
Upper School projects featured a range of mediums, including Art Portfolio’s drawings of the East Room of the Arch Street Meeting House, and Digital Photography’s colorized black and white interior and exterior photographs of the building. Tenth graders in Digital Art designed and created 3D models of monuments to Quakerism.
The third grade created a collaborative piece that hung in the East Room of the Arch Street Meeting House. Made up of three hanging columns of linen sheets, the piece is made up of the land acknowledgment written by the third grade last fall. “It was kind of a surprise,” says Nora C ‘33, who helped create the project. “We went out collecting leaves to tan the paper… and we made it connect to our Lenni Lenape studies.”
This year’s Sights on Site show has concluded, but there is plenty more Friends Select art to see this year. The end-of-year art show, featuring art from all three divisions, opened on May 9th in both the Parkway and STEAM buildings.
