January 27, 2010
artSLAM: The Frick to provide exciting, new summer camp experience
for middle school students in Pittsburgh Public Schools

The Frick Art & Historical Center has been chosen to participate in Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Summer Dreamers Camp for middle-school students. Our camp, which we’ve named  artSLAM, (art Sharing Lives At Museums), will be held at the Frick every weekday afternoon between July 12 and August 13 to provide students with an array of art- and literacy-based activities focusing on our diverse and dynamic collections.

The title of the camp—artSLAM—was purposefully chosen to appeal to middle school campers and plays on the popular poetry slams and other such well-received events. While one of the main goals of the camp is to introduce campers to the inner workings of a museum, the experience will also lead them to develop a passion for museums and teach them to experience museums as places of learning, self-reflection and enjoyment. 

Two of the primary goals of the Frick’s artSLAM camp will be the promotion of student literacy and teaching 21st century skills. Over the course of five weeks, campers will be immersed in daily reading and writing activities which will be energized by our diverse collections; work with Frick curatorial and education staffs to create, design and curate all aspects of an exhibition to be on display across the site; and work with education and curatorial staffs to design and present a companion cell phone guide to the installation.

Two of the primary goals of the Frick’s artSLAM camp will be the promotion of student literacy and teaching 21st century skills. Over the course of the five weeks, campers will:

> be immersed in daily reading and writing activities which will be energized by our diverse collections. Writing activities will range from an imagined conversation between people in a portrait, to personification of chairs in Clayton, to a diary entry by a worker on a car assembly line, to writing from the point of view of an insect living in our greenhouse. 

> work with Frick curatorial and education staffs to create, design and curate all aspects of an exhibition to be on display across the site.  Using their own art work created during camp, students will design the exhibition, write label text and will work with the curatorial department to learn about the installation process. Family and friends will be invited to an exhibition opening celebrating the campers’ work.

> gain leadership skills by participating in public programs at the Frick during weeks four and five of camp. After learning about a specific object in the collection, campers will present mini-gallery talks to the general public about that object on Wednesdays and Fridays.