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“We are White Plains: Bridging, Belonging, & Building Community,” a groundbreaking interactive educational traveling museum exhibit Friday will debut at White Plains High School Friday afternoon, March 17.
It is produced by nonprofit Common Circles in partnership with the White Plains School District, featuring Dimensions in Testimony from USC Shoah Foundation and renowned artist Bayeté Ross Smith’s photo series Our Kind of People.
Nonprofit Common Circles’ groundbreaking traveling educational museum exhibit uses the arts, conversation, technology and storytelling to increase empathy, reduce bias, build communities of belonging, and help people get to know one another better. It is designed to meet New York State’s new mandated Holocaust education requirements by transforming the hallways and classrooms into a world-class museum.
This exhibit customized for the White Plains School District will help the students and the broader community explore identity, the Holocaust and Genocide – with the goal of building bridges – bridges between who we are and who we want to become, between the community we have and the community we want to shape, and between historical lessons of the past and actions we can take in the future.
The exhibit is a creative antidote to the rising tide of antisemitism; it also features some local survivors’ stories.
Two highlights of the exhibit include Dimensions in Testimony from USC Shoah Foundation and world-renowned artist, Bayeté Ross Smith’s series entitled “Our Kind of People”.
Dimensions in Testimony is a collection of interactive survivor biographies from USC Shoah Foundation that enable people to have conversations with pre-recorded video images of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses to genocide.**
Common Circles enlisted world-renowned artist and photographer Bayeté Ross Smith to further develop his “Our Kind of People” series. Using members of the White Plains community (including U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman, Mayor Thomas Roach, State Senator Shelly Mayer, Superintendent of White Plains School District Joseph Ricca, Council Members, Legislators, Superintendent of
Sanitation, and White Plains’ teachers, staff, and administrators.
“Our Kind of People” examines how perception about someone’s identity, value and character is affected by appearance such as clothing, race/ethnicity, gender, complexion, and class signifiers, and
how this then informs our daily interactions and social systems.
The exhibit is meant to introduce, educate, and embrace the varied identities of the people of White Plains.
WHEN: Friday, March 17, 2023. 3:00-4:30 (speeches start promptly at 3:30; please arrive early to go through security and make sure to bring a valid photo id
