Teen and Adult Education and Documentation at Fleisher Art Memorial
Semester: Spring 2024
Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar
Faculty Advisor: Matthew Feliz
Field Site: Fleisher Art Memorial
Field Supervisor: Suzanne Seesman
Praxis Poster:
Grace_Sawyer_Poster_Final_SP24
Further Context:
This semester, I worked at Fleisher Art Memorial, a community art school in south Philadelphia. Fleisher is a nonprofit that aims to make arts education accessible through both free and affordable classes and workshops for children, teens, and adults. I greatly enjoyed my time there with the education department. I started my internship working solely under the manager of adult education, but one of the best parts of working in a small institution like Fleisher is that I was given flexibility to work with other members of the department on different projects. My typical day at Fleisher could involve sitting in on an education department meeting, proofing adult class listings, and finishing the day assisting in Teen Lounge, a free after-school art and community program for Philly teens. It gave me a very well-rounded sense of how arts education and nonprofits function: I worked both behind-the-scenes and hands-on.
Working with the teens was always one of the highlights of my day. Teen Lounge is unique in the autonomy it allows the teen members: they choose their own teachers and workshops, vend their work at craft festivals across the city, organize events, and use the space however they want. My work with them was very hands-off, but I was able to help facilitate small, lower-sensory environments on busier days.
I chose to focus my presentation on documentation: I did not take photos every day at Fleisher, but the times that I did were incredibly memorable and fun. I spent a few nights photographing adult evening classes. My main objective was to take photos of classes that were dynamic and showed the fun, community-building aspects of Fleisher’s classes. I never wanted my photos to look boring or overly academic, as that is not the environment I observed. This was a very fun way of both practicing my photography skills, which I haven’t used for most of college, and getting to know the students and faculty of the adult programs. I also spent a few days in Teen Lounge both taking pictures and conducting interviews for a grant application.
I am so grateful for my experience at Fleisher, and it has gotten me interested in the world of arts in communities outside of museums.