On Oct. 30, the VCAM opened its Student Exhibits, which highlighted student experience with the 2024 Hurford Center Internships and Fellowships. According to the Hurford Center, these summer sponsorships aim to support students seeking careers in the arts and/or humanities, with the goal of advancing their overarching initiative: “What Now: Making a Life in the Arts and Humanities.”
Under the program, a total of 16 students were sponsored for full-time summer internships across the nation. While some students worked remotely, others traveled to new cities, and still others commuted to Philadelphia daily. There was great diversity in the organizations students collaborated with, ranging from Monument Lab, to Editora Educación Emergente, to the American Song Archives. To showcase and celebrate these unique experiences, images of the student interns decorated the entire length of the VCAM exhibition wall. Each student portrait was accompanied by an informative caption, an audio recording of self-reflection, and photos representative of their summer.
Out of the 16 students, three were also part of the Hurford Center Creative Fellowship Program. As Creative Fellows, they were encouraged to develop personal projects while receiving mentorship under a non-profit organization in the arts and/or humanities. The program culminates in a fall creative project for each fellow, which can be found — as the Hurford Center proudly announced on their website and Instagram — “ALL. OVER. VCAM.”
Taking the stairs down and entering the Lower Create Space, visitors would be greeted by an odd bedroom dressed in feather boas and “flying” photographs, complete with video projections of partying folks, a thoroughly glittered scrapbook, and a bed adorned with letter snippets. This lively exhibit, titled: “The Last of the Party People Report for Action,” was curated by Bryn Mawr student Lucy Frank ’25. Over the summer, Frank worked with the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia on their archival collections. Many of the primary sources incorporated into the exhibit, such as photos, letters, and even FBI documents, were sourced from the center.
Frank says that “The Last of the Party People Report for Action” reflects her research on the significance of domestic spaces to Philadelphia’s queer communities. In her framework, Frank cites queer theory as inspiration for curation, particularly a sect that deals with “the radicality in the public disclosure of private realities.” With this exhibit, Frank wants to unravel hidden histories and explore how queer archives challenge the ways in which we record, interact with, and represent memories. The exhibit concludes with an interactive station, where visitors can create “paper prayers” by collaging photocopies of archival material onto postcards. These cards are then pasted onto the wall, and they will be sent to a random address after the exhibit ends (provided by participants). Through this activity, Frank hopes to give visitors an opportunity to create their own art, which “transgresses boundaries of public and private space” and “create[s] homage to the figures celebrated here today.”
The other two Creative Fellow exhibits are located on the second floor of the VCAM, back-to-back in the Upper Creative Space. To the righthand side is “#ExposeFakeClinics,” an exhibit that combines art and activism, curated by Isabella Otterbein HC ‘26. Over the summer, Otterbein worked closely with Abortion Access Front (AAF), a reproductive rights advocacy group that uses comedy to destigmatize abortion and educate the public on harmful abortion laws. Her project investigates and exposes crisis pregnancy centers. According to Otterbein, despite appearing genuine, many of these centers are actually run by anti-abortionist activists who seek to prevent access to abortion care. Based on her research, Otterbein concludes that out of the 26 clinics within a 20-mile radius of Haverford College, only six clinics offered actual abortion services, while 20 did not.
In collaboration with AAF, Otterbein created hilarious and informative zines that outlined her findings, the challenges faced by reproductive rights, and how students can get involved. Elements of the zine, such as the labeled map and research overview, were magnified and displayed on the wall. Inspired by the comedic approach of AAF, Frank implemented a combination of fun graphics and witty rhetoric to dismantle anti-abortion policies and beliefs. Otterbein also plans on hosting “Action Hour” on campus, an AAF event that seeks to identify fake clinics by posting reviews online.
On the opposite wall of Otterbein’s exhibit, a monitor showcases the short animation “Durante Sol y Huracán,” created by Estrellita Ramirez Arboleda HC ’27. The story follows Sol, a 11-year-old Puerto Rican girl who must endure the hardships of 2017’s Hurricane Maria with her family and two cats. During her summer, Ramirez worked alongside Studio YGKrow, a 2D animation studio based in Philadelphia, to learn more about the process of hand-drawn animation. Using the skills she learned from this fellowship, Ramirez produced “Durante Sol y Huracán” as her fall creative project, complete with voice acting, storyboards, and a typed script.
Ramirez says she has been fascinated with animation from a young age, but she also struggled to find “good and relatable representation” in the medium as a Latinx person. “Durante Sol y Huracán,” as Ramirez states, was inspired by her personal experiences with Hurricane Maria, as well as the experiences of her loved one. To the right of the monitor, a series of flashcards, handwritten in both Spanish and English by Puerto Rican students, reflected on Hurricane Maria’s effects, which ranged from short-term power outages to long-term familial separation. For this element of the exhibit, Ramirez worked in collaboration with the Puerto Rican Student Association (PRSA) to capture both the individual and collective emotional turmoil that followed the hurricane. Through this short yet stirring animation, Ramirez hopes to create “a small reflection of the natural disaster that struck the island seven years ago, the impact it had then, and the impact it still has today.”
These Student Exhibits offer in-depth insight into the creative processes of arts and/or humanities students in the Bi-Co. The Hurford Center Summer Program also encourages interested students to learn more about next summer’s internship and fellowship opportunities on their website. The general exhibit, along with the Creative Fellow exhibits, will be running until Nov. 22.
