We All Bleed Red Exhibit To Showcase Student Work
We All Bleed Red, a student-organized multimedia arts project, will be displayed on campus in Agora from May 20th to May 30th, after months of hard work from student contributors and organizers. This is the second iteration of the project, which was started in 2016 by alumni Kevin Zhen ‘16 and Pranay Vemulamada ‘16, along with current senior Carissa Chen. Chen organized the event this year, along with senior Nada Zohayr, uppers Pedro Sanson and Madison Stern and lower Jeremy Xu.
“I hope to see the project continue each year as a way to inspire and engage us all in these critical issues.”
The exhibition will feature artistic submissions such as stories, paintings, drawings and other works from Exeter students. An opening will be held on May 20 from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M. This year, the event will feature English instructor Mercedes Carbonell, musical performances from seniors Joonho Jo, Aivant Goyal and Charis Edwards, a poetry reading from upper Maria Heeter, and a dance performance from lower Katrina Schmidt. The scope of this year’s project is larger than last year’s, featuring a wider range of student submissions focusing on the central theme of intersecting identities: “What is it like to be _______ and ______ at Exeter?”
The event offers Exonians the chance to examine aspects of themselves that are seemingly at odds, in the wake of a vitriolic election cycle that has led to a nation-wide reckoning on topics of intersectionality and personal identity. “In the light of the current political climate, I think understanding multi-dimensional aspects of each other becomes incredibly important,” Chen said. Sanson highlighted the fluidity of the event in respect to the ever-changing atmosphere at Exeter. “With every school year Exeter’s identity is changing,” Sanson explained. “There are always new perspectives, cultures, ethnicities and beliefs that reshape who we are as a community.”
The We All Bleed Red event will feature submissions from over fifteen Exonians in a variety of media, with the intention of eliciting deeper thinking and emotional responses from the audience. “Our hope in leading such a gallery is that out of the 1000+ members of the Exeter community, a student will stop to admire the artwork, and something will shift inside of him or her…perhaps a story or a poem resonates with the student, and they find empathy with the author,” Chen said.
According to Zhen, this goal, which has not changed since the event’s conception, arises from the fact that many Exonians have surface connections with each other but are not connecting on personal levels. “Rarely do we purposefully make ourselves vulnerable and share the stories that shape our core,” he said. “Our hope is that through this project we can get to know one another a little better as people—not just classmates, not just roommates, not just people who attend the same clubs as us and share meals with us—but as people, as Exonians.”
Lower Wynter Tracey, whose poem “A Love Letter to a Black Girl” and portraits of African-American males on campus (entitled #BlackBoyJoy showcase) are to be featured in We All Bleed Red embraced the opportunity to participate in the event. “I decided to submit mostly because there aren’t a lot of opportunities outside of art classes to create visual art just for the sake of art, so I wanted to take the opportunity to do that for myself because it’s something I really care about,” she explained. She also highlighted the event as a platform through which to experience differing backgrounds on campus. “[It] allows students to gain different perspective of their peers outside of the classroom by exploring their unique identities,” she said. “Hopefully it will inspire people to reach out and get to know their fellow Exonians’ more behind-the-surface aspects of their lives.”
The founders of We All Bleed Red hope to create a sense of empathy between Exonians and our community through the exhibit, and spark a conversation from that sense of empathy. “We want to start a dialogue, a discussion about our community and its culture,” Chen said.
The project will certainly be continuing next year, with Pedro Sanson ‘18, Jeremy Xu ‘19 and Madison Stern ‘18 spearheading it in 2018. The students intend for the event to grow as each year passes, becoming larger not only in the number of artworks displayed, but also in its significance within the community.“We need to take care—of ourselves and of each other—in this community,” Lamont Gallery Director Lauren O’Neal said. “I hope to see the project continue each year as a way to inspire and engage us all in these critical issues.”