Nancy Hughes, Director
Our Shared Humanity
In 2019 as Brewster Academy began to plan for its bicentennial celebration in 2020, Craig Gemmell and his team were eager to do something that could be shared with the town of Wolfeboro and the surrounding area, given the school's deep history with the local community. During this period Gemmell was approached by a former Ossipee local, Craig Vezina, who asked Gemmell if Brewster might be interested in hosting the remarkable photography exhibition entitled 200 Women, which had opened in New York City and then toured in Europe. Soon plans were underway to host the exhibition of forty-six large scale photographs in the soon-to-be-renovated Rogers building in the spring of 2020. But like so much in the spring of 2020 and the ensuing months, the Covid-19 pandemic scrambled Brewster’s bicentennial plans.
In the winter of 2021, new head-of-school Kristy Kerin and her team returned to exhibition planning and began to think about not just sharing but actually partnering with the town. Now in the spring of 2022, Brewster is delighted to be partnering with the Wolfeboro Public Library and Town Hall to share the 200 Women exhibition with the wider community throughout the month of May. In each location—Brewster’s Lord House, The Great Hall in the Town Hall, and the Wolfeboro Public Library—visitors can view two clusters of the portraits.
A word about the exhibition: Each of the women presented were photographed against a neutral background and simultaneously filmed responding to the following questions: What really matters to you? What brings you happiness? What do you consider the lowest depth of misery? What would you change if you could? What single word so you must identify with? The women’s responses to these questions are available in text and through QR codes at each location, and make this exhibition particularly engaging and compelling. The photographs are striking; the women’s words are powerful.
An accompanying virtual speaker series: As Kerin’s team prepared for the exhibition, they saw an opportunity to enrich the viewing experience and provide space for further reflection and discussion around the exhibition’s five central questions. This gave rise to the Our Shared Humanity virtual speaker series, which runs every Tuesday evening from April 26th-May 24th. They are proud to have received support for this virtual program from New Hampshire Humanities.
More information available about the
200 Women exhibition and Our Shared Humanity speaker series:
brewsteracademy.org/OurSharedHumanity
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