Field Trip! Northwest Academy Students to View the Work of Kara Walker

On April 1 Northwest Academy students will travel to Eugene to view the work of Kara Walker, a contemporary African-American artist, at the University of Oregon.

Walker’s pieces show the underbelly of gender and racial conflicts and tensions. Her work explores race, violence, sexuality and identity through black paper silhouettes fixed to the walls of her workspace.

High school students will leave the morning of April 1 by bus for Eugene, where they are expected to spend two hours exploring.

The pieces come from Jordan Schnitzer’s, a parent at Northwest Academy, collection and are being shown at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus.

“All of our high school students have been invited to go and it’s a rare excursion for all of us!” Mary Folberg, Northwest Academy Head of School, said. “We want to expose students at our school to an emerging major artist in this country: Kara Walker.”

The field trip allows students to view extraordinary works of art while also demonstrating controversial subjects in a different light.

“The Kara Walker exhibit is unique in that her medium is perfect for the subject matter of her art,” Dan Dunning, High School Coordinator, said. “She also explores issues that are controversial; her work challenges our temptations to forget the past and ignore its influence on the present. She forces us to look at aspects of history, humanity, and ultimately ourselves that make us uncomfortable. This discomfort is part of what makes her art so important.”

As the school year progresses, faculty and students alike hope to visit more galleries and take more field trips to experience art outside of a classroom setting.

“I love doing things like this,” Josephine Appleyard, a freshman, said. “We could be learning about the same art in class but instead we get to experience it outside of school. Plus I love being able to pack up and do things like this with the rest of the school.”