New artist-in-residence chosen

Bari Ziperstein, this year’s Artist-in-Residence, will col­laborate with five Visual Arts classes and showcase her work alongside Marlbor­ough student artwork at an exhibition called “Mapping History” in Seaver Gallery from May 8 to Jun. 1, 2012.

Complementing this year’s all-school theme of “Strengthening and Cel­ebrating the Community,” Ziperstein proposed to build an installation that would create intersections between history, architec­ture, ornamentation and the site.

As part of this initiative, Ziperstein plans to trans­form Seaver Gallery into a sculptural tableau based on images from Marlborough’s archives that will challenge viewers to examine the his­tory and the future of the School.

“My goal is that when people walk into the Gal­lery, they will be confront­ed with the past and those memories,” Ziperstein said. “The students’ work will be installed on top of a new site-specific colored tape installation that I will create which maps the architec­tural history of the site and thus complements the lay­ered history of Marlborough School.”

Archivist Peter Chinnici provided Ziperstein with old photographs of pre-1940 students and uniforms, which she plans to incorporate into “Mapping History.”

Throughout the second semes­ter, Ziperstein will work with eighth graders enrolled in the two Art Con­cepts classes, as well as with stu­dents in Visual Arts instructor Kathy Rea’s Intermediate Drawing and Painting course.

Specifically, Ziperstein will lead students in turning images of past Marl­borough students into several life-sized, freestanding cardboard figures.

According to Visual Arts De­partment Head Gina Woodruff, 9th through 12th Grade students enrolled in Beginning Sculpture learned during first semester from Ziperstein how to take a flat image and turn it into a three-dimensional form us­ing photographs of students from the archives along with some images of the School and the grounds.

“The biggest challenge is engineer­ing these pieces so they will stand up,” Woodruff said.

8th Grade students in Visual Arts in­structor Josh Deu’s class, Introduction to Digital Arts, will utilize historical portraits of former Marlborough girls to create a digital thaumatrope, an early Victorian antecedent of animation.

Ziperstein will also produce a book about her experience that will be on dis­play during the exhibition and will be subsequently donated to the School for future generations to read.

In Sep. 2010, Ziperstein collabo­rated with Visual Arts instructor Chel­sea Dean on Fall Residency I, an exhibit hosted by Cypress College. Together, they built an interpretation of Summer­camp—a home in El Sereno that func­tions as an artist work space—by artisti­cally depicting the history of the house and incorporating the house’s past exhi­bitions into the college’s gallery.

Dean said she is thrilled to be working with Ziperstein again. “Bari is a great fit for Marlborough because she has a lot of experience doing collab­orative projects,” Dean said. “She’s totally organized and always on her game!”