The creative works of Fairfax County students will be on display as part of a special exhibition opening this weekend at the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art in Reston.
“Emerging Visions” opens Saturday (June 15) with a public reception from 4 to 6 p.m. at the institute’s main gallery (12001 Market Street, Suite 103) and will feature artworks hand selected by Tephra’s staff.
On display until July 14, the exhibit will feature the work of students from Columbia, Fairhill, Lynbrook and Franklin Sherman elementary schools, along with pieces from Langston Hughes Middle School students.
The students’ goal was to create work as an artistic response to Tephra’s fall 2023 exhibition, “Choosing to Portage,” which enlisted five artists to examine the concept of cultural inheritance. That exhibit was part of a series intended to celebrate the arts organization’s 50th anniversary.
Toniann Iovine, a visual studio artist who teaches fourth and fifth graders at Lynbrook Elementary School in Springfield, says she wanted her students to participate in “Emerging Visions” so they could learn to see themselves in their art.
“It’s not about copying the artists’ style,” Iovine told FFXnow. “It’s being able to tell your story and express it in your art.”
For one class assignment, students were asked to depict a version of their future selves, Iovine said.
“It’s art with a purpose; art with intention,” she said.
Iovine’s students received inspiration from Noelle Garcia, whose mixed-media piece “Cowboy Gun” was part of the “Choosing to Portage” exhibit, when she visited them during the school year.
“It resonated in a very real way, Iovine said. “She talked to them about who she is.”
Garcia, an indigenous artist from the Klamath and Paiute tribes, said she sees her work as an embodiment of her worldview.
She created “Cowboy Gun,” a beaded recreation of a handgun in sparkly silver and lavender glass beads, as a way to draw critical attention to how the legacy of colonialization has influenced the representation of indigenous cultures by Western museums.
“I want the students to appreciate themselves,” Garcia said. “When you make artwork, it’s a form of meditation.”
Garcia said she believes students perform better when art is incorporated into basic education disciplines, such as math.
For six years, Tephra has worked with Fairfax County Public Schools teachers through the “Emerging Visions” program, where institute staff and educators work together to develop artistic themes that are integrated into school curriculum and produce art assignments in response to Tephra exhibits.
