Simone Leigh’s exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum has created a buzz on campus this year.

Upper school students in Ana Sotelo’s Photography I class visited the exhibition and documented their experience with film cameras. Afterward, Cassidy Brown ’24 and Seth Levine ’25 curated a collection of the class’s photographs. The show, Revealing Simone Leigh, was designed to highlight aspects of femininity and culture in the artist's work.

"I loved seeing this exhibition and the many ways in which women and their experiences can be portrayed through different mediums. I thought the way the rooms were set up was very interesting; it allowed you to really sit with each piece and think about it.” — Sophia Smith ’26

In the meantime, Kali Haney’s third grade art classes also took a trip to the Hirshhorn and were making their own connections to Leigh’s work. When they returned to school, the they were invited to the upper school photography show. The student curators were there to explain the work, giving lower school students new insights into Leigh’s work, as well as the process of understanding a national exhibition through darkroom photography. Third graders reciprocated, inviting the older students to their class to discuss Leigh’s use of symbols.

Simone Leigh (b. 1967, Chicago) represented the US at the 2022 Venice Biennale and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023. The Hirshhorn exhibit featured some of her key works in ceramic, bronze, and film.