Four students from Henry Viscardi School at The Viscardi Center recently had their artwork selected for display at the 2013 Embracing Our Differences outdoor art exhibition at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood.
Their work will be enlarged into 16-feet wide by 12-feet high panels for display between Oct. 14 and 27.
“I felt that this contest would be perfect for my students… it would give them an opportunity to use their Photoshop skills to express themselves,” said Linda Reiser, media technology teacher at Henry Viscardi School at The Viscardi Center. “Our students face many challenges… and therefore able to produce work that articulated their experiences in a powerful way.”
Delvin’s work, hands of different sizes and colors reaching towards the Earth from space, illustrates society’s struggle to recognize and accept people’s differences. Kiara’s piece is a contemplative girl with negative words appearing across her face demonstrating their hurtfulness.
Ron’s image, picturing the Earth divided into distinct sections inside the pupil of an eye, indicates the world’s inability to live in harmony, and Robert, who created a filmstrip timeline of U.S. legislation from 1830 to the present, illustrates how past laws of exclusion – Indian Removal Act and Jim Crow laws -have more recently given way to policies of inclusion – such as the 1990 American’s With Disabilities Act.
Embracing Our Differences, a project of The Suffolk Center on the Holocaust, Diversity and Human Understanding, Inc., at Suffolk Community College, strives to build better communities by reinforcing values respecting human dignity and promoting freedom. Judged by professional artists and curators, criteria included artistic excellence, how well the work translated into enlarged outdoor panels, and how the artwork addressed exhibit themes of living in a diverse community, impact of prejudice and hatred on human dignity, and varied people and cultures in the world.
