Photograph by Asia Guzman
The Arts and Humanities Academy (AHA) at Berkeley High School (BHS) is home to many talented, expressive artists who focus their high school education on creative arts. But throughout BHS, many students in other small learning communities and community members in general do not get the chance to see AHA art. This detachment of AHA’s creative arts from the rest of the community changes with the Kala Exhibition, a chance for AHA students’ art to be displayed in a professional gallery.
Every year AHA partners with Kala, an art space and gallery located on San Pablo in South Berkeley to produce a gallery filled primarily with artwork from that year’s AHA junior and senior classes. Some years, artwork from the AHA freshman and sophomore classes are included.
This year’s Kala show had its opening night on February 22. The show consisted of art from AHA art classes and the interdisciplinary projects of all the AHA students.
The interdisciplinary project is a major part of being in AHA. Every year, instead of doing mid-year finals for their English and History classes, AHA students do a month long research project focusing on a certain issue.
At the end of the month, the students present an art project that is supposed to show their understanding of the project and the material that they had learned for the past month.
Once they are done with the project, the art pieces are then put into the Kala art show.
The Kala show is very specific to AHA, in that you don’t really see it very much in other public schools. While other art schools might have exhibitions, very rarely will they have shows involved with professional galleries.
“We do this show in order to give the AHA students a little experience with gallery showings and having their work shown,” said Miriam Stahl, an AHA art teacher who has been one of the instrumental teachers in putting together the Kala shows. “It prepares them for how the art world works outside of the school walls, that way, if they want to pursue a career in the arts, they will have already had some experience in the world of art galleries. It is also cool for them to see their work that they have been working on all year hung up in a professional gallery."
The freshman class’ projects were related to immigration and the stories of people who immigrated to the United States. Students drew portraits of the immigrants that they interviewed with a technique that they learned from a specialized artist brought in to help them.
The sophomore class projects were related to environmental justice and were performance art pieces, rather than visual. Since they weren’t visual art, instead of them being hung up, the performance was filmed and put on a loop for the Kala gallery.
The junior class project was about the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality. They made informative art books that were hung up on strings for the Kala exhibit.
Lastly, the senior class’ projects related to many different social issues, but the art form was editing popular movie posters so that they could reflect issues in modern day society.
The Kala show also helps build a community of parents, teachers, and students. "An important part of the Kala exhibition is that it gives parents the opportunity to see what their kids are doing in their classes and makes it so that they can connect with other parents over the art," said AHA teacher Devon Brewer. “Also, other BHS teachers always come and I feel so proud to see how impressed they are with our student artwork.”
The Kala exhibition involves everybody in AHA and is, after all, for the students. “It is an honor to see my art hanging in a gallery surrounded by so much art that means something," said Amaya Molina, an AHA junior. "And while all art means something, ours was based on social justice and trying to make a difference in the world. That to me is an honor within itself and is very important.”
When students go to the show they can catch a small glimpse of the sense of community within AHA, and how everybody worked together and will work together to create these wonderful art shows, with not just good art, but also personality and community.