Wendy Ewald: On Reading
March 19 - May 25, 2007
Main Gallery, John Hope Franklin Center
Opening Reception
Monday, March 19th, 2007
5:30 - 7:30 PM :: Franklin Center Main Gallery
Panel Discussion
Monday, March 19th, 2007
7:00 PM :: 240 Franklin Center
with Diego Cortez, Art Advisor and Freelance Curator; Philip Brookman, Chief Curator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art; and Eric Gottesman, photographer
Wendy Ewald
January 2007
On Reading
When I began my 2002 artist residency at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, my son was just learning to read. Like any parent, I was fascinated. At what point would the marks on the page turn into readable patterns? What if it didn’t happen so easily? What would that mean? What would we do?
I asked Michelle Silvia, the special education teacher at Carl Lauro Elementary School in Providence, if I could sit in on her class. Most of her third- to fifth-graders were having a hard time with reading and writing. I wanted to know more about their struggles, so I asked each of them to read for me in a make-shift studio.
I’ve worked for a number of years on projects that try to describe language in visual terms, and now I was especially interested in watching the students’ physical reactions as they tackled a new book. We attached a tiny video camera to my son’s bicycle helmet and pointed the camera at the students’ eyes while they read. We lit the books they were reading so that the pages would be reflected in their pupils. Afterwards, each student drew a concept map in the form of a web describing what reading meant to them.
For more information on this and other exhibits at the Franklin Center, contact Pamela Gutlon, p.gutlon@duke.edu.