The Met hosts its PS Art exhibition, every year. PS Art program and exhibition enables opportunities for kids and students coming from public schools. The goal is for every kid, no matter from which school they come from, to have equal rights to high-art education. The exhibition shows best works of K-12 students.
The Met Exhibitis More Than Hundred Children Works
Alison Scott-Williams, the president of Studio in a School in NYC, said it was very difficult to choose the best artworks, out of 1200 applications for the program. Out of 1200, 122 made it to the exhibition, hosted by The Metropolitan Museum. “It’s a gift to be able to support young people in this way”, Alison Scott-Williams said, who celebrates children’s creativity for a long time.
Before working at the Studio in a School NYC, she was a vice-president of arts education at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Her first exhibition at the school was “in a very large Zoom room”, as she said. This was the first one after the pandemic. The 2023 PS Art exhibition is her second, not a virtual art exhibition. “On the opening day, it’s just magical”, she said.
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Sign up to our Free Weekly Newsletter“We had 300 kids and their parents to see the unveiling. Everyone is so excited, the noise level is up to here, and gleefully so. Everyone is talking together, it’s so joyful. For a lot of parents, it’s their first time coming to the museum – the child has been the conduit to expand the knowledge base of the family”, she also added.
Chances for Underrepresented Children
Studio in a School works with various communities from ten different states, and also with many other cultural institutions: the Brooklyn Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem. As Scott-Williams puts it, “we serve underrepresented children in under-resourced neighbourhoods”. This means giving a chance to children, whose schools may not have enough finances to devote themselves to them in detail.
In addition to the fact that the program allows children to learn more about art, it also gives them a chance to have their work seen. “To have your artwork in the Met, are you kidding me?”, exclaimed Scott-Williams. “It’s the place, it’s a big deal”. Also, as they participate in the exhibition, The Met keeps their data in its archive. Also, the best 15 high school seniors receive a thousand dollar scholarship.
The most important work for the organization is celebrating the youth. She lamented that “school is set up to make parents happy about kids getting good grades”, and that there are “not a lot of moments set up to make people celebrate kids’ achievement in school”. She valued the PS Art program because it really does center kids and their creativity.
