Lamont Gallery Exhibit by Jeffrey Songco Unveiled

By FIONA LIU, ANNIE BHU, DIYA SANDEEP, and JILLIAN CHENG

On Jan. 2, the Lamont Art Gallery opened its newest exhibition: the Society of 23’s Conservatory. Tucked in the brick and glass Lamont Gallery, the Conservatory sprawls across multiple rooms in a multicolor display of glass, cozy furniture, and hanging plants. Created by Jeffery Augustine Songco, the Conservatory provides the viewer with an immersive, multisensory experience with visual and auditory components. The gallery explores the complex relationships between Songco’s identities and real-world society: being Filipino-American while understanding that colonial America collected “exotic” plants from the Philippines, “coming out,” and moving to a rural area after urban living. 

At the heart of Songco’s work is a fictional brotherhood which he calls the Society of 23, where he portrays all 23 members.

  “This ongoing project explores themes of community, individuality, and societal constructs, and it’s inspired by my experiences of marginalization and belonging. The brotherhood becomes a metaphor for America and its complexities, contradictions, and aspirations, as well as my own navigation of cultural dualities, conflicts, and connections,” Songco remarked. 

The project is ongoing, meaning that he continues to add to it even now. “Each new artwork I make is somehow related to the brotherhood and I like that it’s a nonlinear narrative,” said Songco. “Something I create today, like the ‘Society of 23’s Conservatory’ could be something that tells an origin story of something I created two years ago. I like to think of my different artworks as a series of movies, like the X-Men movies, where the fifth or sixth movie in the series turns out to be a prequel for the whole thing.”

Songco’s youth shaped his installations and his expression of identity. “I really loved performing as a kid, so when I got to college I tried to find ways to continue performing,” he said. “I learned quickly as an art student at Carnegie Mellon University that art was more than traditional ideas of painting and sculpture, but that it also included ideas of performance and installation.”

His interest in performance additionally influenced how he modeled his installations: “I’m very interested in creating theatrical productions that are immersive, like giving visitors to my installations the opportunity of feeling like actors in a make believe world,” he said. 

The Academy’s resources allow Songco to make his dreams come true. Pamela Meadows, the Lamont Gallery curator, said, “One of the things I love about curating, particularly at PEA is that we have the support to completely transform Lamont Gallery with each show.” The process to introduce the Society of 23 to Phillips Exeter started with proposals from almost a year ago. Songco and Meadows coordinated to build the physical exhibit using furniture from the Goel theater’s prop closet, plants researched by the Academy’s horticulturist Jess Kozemchak, and glass flowers shipped from Songco’s studio in New York. 

Additionally, Meadows explained that “the Lamont Gallery’s Collections and Exhibitions Manager, Mr. Schuetz spent months designing, fabricating, and prepping the space for an epic transformation.”

“It was a gigantic lift to get things in place weeks before the artist even arrived to help,” Ms. Meadows admitted. However, once the exhibit finally opened, the hard work of the Lamont Gallery faculty and Songco’s stunning art was brought to life. 

Prep Johanna Hillman shared that her “favorite part of the gallery was a chandelier the artist created out of these circular pieces of colored glass. It was really beautiful and I think the whole exhibition just fit really well in the space with all the natural light and exposed bricks that they have in there.” 

Compared to the past exhibits of the Lamont Gallery, Hillman felt that Society of 23’s Conservatory felt more three-dimensional. “There are a bunch of tables, chairs, and it’s as if the artist tried to turn the Lamont art gallery into a psychedelic industrial-studio apartment. I think this exhibit feels a bit more cohesive than the last one, too. Rather than a bunch of separate works, this exhibit feels like one whole piece of art.”

Upper Wilson Rhee’s favorite part of the exhibit was the cozy jazz music. “The music really adds to the atmosphere and storytelling. You feel immersed in the time period not only by the visual components of the exhibit but by the soundscapes that the artist chose to serve as a backdrop to his vision.” 

“The Society of 23’s Conservatory is a multilayered experience that really consumes the senses,” Meadows said. “My interpretation of the space is constantly in flux and that’s what I treasure so much about this show. There are times I walk in the space and appreciate the sun shining down, casting neon refractions from the Conservatory’s chandelier amongst plants, real and faux, while the water fountain trickles along to the hum of 1940s music. I feel at peace, cozy, and cared for.”

  She added, “I think [the Lamont Gallery]...creates a new space for students to connect with one another. I also enjoy that there’s participatory facets to the show (like being able to create your own flower arrangement in one of the side bays), make a friendship bracelet, or piece together some of the ‘Easter egg’ clues Jeffrey has left about the brothers.”

After leaving the miniature, colored glass world that Society of 23’s Conservatory provides, Songco would like students to reflect on how they treat the spaces around them. “I want students to feel like they can take up space and that they can change it. Go back to your dorm room and move stuff around! I had this awesome opportunity to work at Lamont Gallery and take up the space and change it. When we make the space we want, we’re empowered to be our authentic selves.”