*The video was created by Christine Wang from Year 8.
This year’s art exhibition for Pao Middle School, ‘Beyond: The New Horizon in Art,’ was imagined and produced by a group of twenty-two students from different year levels. Working together over the course of thirteen weeks, following a project-based learning approach, these students developed the exhibition as a part of the Curatorial Arts Program CCA.
Over the course of four months, under the guidance of their teachers, the students formed teams to brainstorm concepts, create spatial narratives, design posters, and write introductions, embracing the theme of ‘my work, my curation.’ By taking their classroom creations all the way through to exhibition, they learned that art encompasses much more than the creation of artworks.
The exhibition was held in the Innovation Centre on the fourth floor of the Anna Pao Sohmen Centre. This facility comprises a variety of specialized spaces, including design studios, woodworking shops, photography rooms, darkrooms, recording studios, digital production workshops, and robotics labs. The exhibition space serves as the core area, connecting various display zones through corridors outside the professional classrooms. This integration creates a cohesive and professional art exhibition environment, allowing the new space to come alive through art.
The "Beyond: The New Horizon in Art" exhibition features 18 distinct display areas, showcasing the artistic achievements of students in Years 6 to 8 throughout the academic year. The exhibited works include both collaborative projects and individual creations, which highlights a diverse array of artistic forms, including acrylic paintings, ceramic art, glass crafts, and fashion design, among work in other mediums.
Expressions of Creativity
8B Hanson, Tutu, Joyce Wu, Christine, Ava
Cross-Century Melodies
Mixed media
This three-dimensional violin is made with mixed materials to reflect the variety of musical creation. In the background, flames consume musical scores, symbolizing the continuing resonance of music even during the process of its destruction. Contrasts in texture and imagery express the power of recreation and transcendence under pressure, the ultimate theme of this exhibit.
The exhibition was entirely planned and executed by students, stretching their creativity in all the dimensions of visual style, display design, and visitor engagement. Year 7 students transformed the theme ‘Words Growing Beyond Boundaries’ into interactive computer fonts and physical stamps. They repurposed standard display cases into ‘art refrigerators’ which embedded model fruits and vegetables, utilizing ‘two-point perspective’ to enrich the ‘My City’ exhibition area.
Students formed specialized teams based on their strengths. The design team created posters featuring ‘eyes,’ the writing team produced the exhibition preface, and the tour guide team narrated the artworks' stories from both ‘creator’ and ‘curator’ perspectives. Following the exhibition, students reflected on the experiences they had gained throughout the project.
1. Describe the experience of participating in the CCA curation process in three words.
Innovation, Creation, Creativity.
This was the first time students took the lead in planning an exhibition, marking a significant innovation. Throughout the process—from theme development to spatial planning, and from visual design to writing—we were challenged to harness our abilities to create from scratch. Finally, there was creativity: how to integrate architectural works and self-portraits into a cohesive space, how to showcase numerous pieces within a limited corridor, and how to add more engaging elements to the exhibition. Solving these challenges required us to tap into our creative thinking.
—— Carmen Gu, Year
2. How does preparation for a collective exhibition compare with individual creation?
I believe the main difference lies in the collaborative skills required. The curation process demands teamwork among various groups focusing on display, visual elements, and writing. It involves constant communication and coordination, and we also had to work closely with teachers to confirm plans and timelines. This experience truly tested our ability to grasp the bigger picture.
—— Emily Jin, Year 8
3. What was it like to serve as a tour guide?
Being a tour guide was an especially memorable experience for me. As led the audience through the exhibition, I found myself in a dual role: I had the memories of a curator, recalling the content of the texts and the placement of each piece, while also experiencing the exhibition from the audience's perspective. It created a unique feeling of being both actively involved and distanced enough to observe the overall impact of the exhibition.
—— Carmen Gu, Year 8
4. What new insights do you have about curation and viewing exhibitions?
I’ve come to realize that curation is not just about arranging artworks, it’s a form of reinterpretation. Curating is akin to writing an essay, where an exhibition has a theme and a narrative structure. Every design element in the exhibition is carefully crafted by the curator, and I encourage others to pay attention to these details when viewing exhibitions in the future.
—— Molly Li, Year 8
*Wing Wu, Head of Visual Arts at Middle School, contributed to this article.
Please click here for Virtual Tour of the art exhibition.
