Art Show Captures the Wrenching Effects of Closing a School
The show “reForm” commemorates the Fairhill School in North Philadelphia and represents the pain of losing 31 schools. Credit Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA — A school may be made of bricks and mortar, but when one closes, the loss can feel like a death in the family.
So, when Philadelphia started to close 31 public schools three years ago, there was an outpouring of protests, grief and tears — emotions captured in “reForm,” a show that opened on Friday and focuses on one shuttered school and its neighborhood.
The exhibition, in a converted basement space at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in North Philadelphia, is a model of a classroom at Fairhill, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school a mile away that closed at the end of the academic year in 2013.
The space is filled with familiar equipment like lockers, books and desks — 80 percent of which comes from the school itself — but also includes written and oral testimony about the closure and its wrenching effect on students.
In a corridor, a row of cubbies from Fairhill has backpacks, jackets and coat hooks, and a glass case houses a stuffed bobcat, the school’s mascot, standing on a pile of opened books.
Kiara Villegas, 15, a former Fairhill student who participated in the project.Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
Inside the classroom, a blackboard is covered by the text of a letter sent by Dr. William R. Hite, the school district’s superintendent, to Fairhill’s principal, Darlene Lomax, informing her of the decision to close the school.
“Our circumstances require us to reduce the unused space in our schools so that we can better use resources on providing students with a safe environment and a higher-quality learning environment,” says the letter, written on the board in what looks like a chalk script.
The room also contains a teacher’s lectern, affixed with part of a “property available” sign. This recalls the actual placard on the shuttered building, with which the school district hopes to attract buyers.
Among the most eloquent components are essays by nine Fairhill students Art Show Captures the Wrenching Effects of Closing a School - The New York Times: