Art Happenings

Art Happenings are exciting, playful, hands-on experiences of art and art-making that explore our WISSIT throughlines and our experience of community. 

Project Zero began with a line of inquiry around what we can learn from the practices of arts education. We intentionally engage that rich throughline during Art Happenings on Tuesday and Thursday at 12:15. 

Artist- and maker-educators draw us together for an immersive 45-minutes of reflection, creativity, and deep learning! Choose an Art Happening that stretches your comfort zone or one that makes you feel at home; join with colleagues or new friends; drop in on the fly and feel free to move around.  

Our theme for this year, in connection with the WISSIT throughlines on creativity and agency, is What We Make Of It. Artists and makers have created powerful and reflective works across places, historical moments, spaces, and material cultures that were diverse and sometimes daunting. In their contexts, artworks are often what they made of their moment – and in our times artmaking can help us consider what we might make of ours. How can art and artful thinking nurture a resilient and audacious creativity?

Thursday's Art Happenings

Read & Move: Literacy in Motion

Multipurpose Room 117 - hosted by Jacquelyn Lonon

For educators and creatives eager to bring literature to life through movement! This interactive course combines reading with dance, inviting participants to explore stories in a dynamic, physical way. Experience the power of movement to unlock deeper understanding, fresh insights, and meaningful connections!

Make It Stick: A Wall-to-Wall Wonderjam

Gym Entrance (Basement) - hosted by Kristen Kullberg

How do we make something meaningful, bold, reflective, and even joyful—out of what we’ve got? In this collaborative art making session, we’ll use only painter’s tape and the blank walls around us to create vibrant, temporary murals that reflect both individual expression and collective imagination. Come explore how creative agency emerges through shared making, how constraint can spark possibility, and how art can bring people together to make sense of a moment, one colorful piece at a time.

Transformative Assemblage

Room 003 (Basement) - hosted by Ash Beck

From discarded fragments, new visions arise. This assemblage workshop embraces the beauty found in wood scraps, offering a space to choose our own creative path. We'll build and contemplate the contrasting nature of the ephemeral and the permanent in our sculptural creations. 

Dance as Stories, Community, and Protection

Movement Studio (Basement) -  hosted by Chitra Subramanian

In this interactive movement session, DC-based dance artist Chitra (of chitra.MOVES) offers movement exercises that foster storytelling and building community.  Through the power of gestures, social exchanges, and rhythms that ground us, together we will build our protective ecosystem through dance. 

What We Hold, What We Let Go: Transformative Sculpture     en español | in spanish

Design Lab Room 008 (Basement) - hosted by Agnes Gomez

What do you carry with you, and what are you ready to release? In this hands-on, reflective experience, participants will use found and natural materials to create a paired sculpture to symbolize what you hold onto and what you let go. Through the act of making, discover how creativity can shape resilience, and how art can help us make meaning of the moment we’re in.

Breaking to Build: The Art of Creative Destruction

Art Room 214 - hosted by Adrienne Gayoso (designed by Aselin Flowers)

What can we discover about ourselves through the act of breaking and rebuilding? In this hands-on workshop, we'll explore themes of identity and transformation using 3D materials to create. Get inspired by the works of renowned sculptor Chakaia Booker, who transforms discarded rubber tires into powerful sculptural forms. 

Educator Action Figure

Library Room 213 - hosted by Georgina Ardalan

Come design a self-portrait action figure! Using thinking routines, create an action figure that illustrates your educator self. Participants will walk away armed with an action figure to remind them of their intentions for the upcoming academic year.

Creating Quiet Moments

Room 316 - hosted by Grace Bogosian Davin

Feeling the need to slow down and welcome some quiet reflection? Unwind in this calming arts happening and reconnect to your why for being in education. We'll begin with guided meditation using visual art, then create with intentional materials that foster process thinking. Leave feeling grounded, refreshed, and creatively recharged.

Tuesday's Arts Happenings

Dance as Stories, Community, and Protection 

Movement Studio (Basement) -  hosted by Chitra Subramanian

In this interactive movement session, DC-based dance artist Chitra (of chitra.MOVES) offers movement exercises that foster storytelling and building community.  Through the power of gestures, social exchanges, and the rhythms that ground us, together we will build our protective ecosystem through dance.  

What We Make of It!

Multipurpose Room 117 - hosted by Marla McLean

Make a meaningful gift for yourself using collage on tile inspired by Multiplicity, Blackness in Contemporary Collage.  Reconnect to your heart and soul for teaching and life. Relax as you flip through images and papers and begin to cut, glue, and layer the images and symbols that will transport you to your joy or your connections from WISSIT.  Your final piece will be ready to hang.

Making Room

Room 004 (Basement) - hosted by Sonia Chintha

Whether it’s creating space for new perspectives, clearing mental clutter, or literally making room on the page for your stories to unfold, inspired by the work of Mickalene Thomas, let’s make room together. Centered around themes of space, transformation, and possibility, participants will cut, paste, fold, and bind unique mini-publications that reflect what it means to make room in their lives. Come as you are, leave with a finished zine and space for your own voice on the page

Transformative Assemblage

Room 003 (Basement) - hosted by Ash Beck

From discarded fragments, new visions arise. This assemblage workshop embraces the beauty found in wood scraps, offering a space to choose our own creative path. We'll build and contemplate the contrasting nature of the ephemeral and the permanent in our sculptural creations. 

What We Hold, What We Let Go: Transformative Sculpture en español | in spanish

Design Lab Room 008 (Basement) - hosted by Agnes Gomez

What do you carry with you, and what are you ready to release? In this hands-on, reflective experience, participants will use found and natural materials to create a paired sculpture to symbolize what you hold onto and what you let go. Through the act of making, discover how creativity can shape resilience, and how art can help us make meaning of the moment we’re in.

Make It Stick: A Wall-to-Wall Wonderjam

Gym Entrance (Basement) - hosted by Kristen Kullberg

How do we make something meaningful, bold, reflective, and even joyful—out of what we’ve got? In this collaborative art making session, we’ll use only painter’s tape and the blank walls around us to create vibrant, temporary murals that reflect both individual expression and collective imagination. Come explore how creative agency emerges through shared making, how constraint can spark possibility, and how art can bring people together to make sense of a moment, one colorful piece at a time.

Educator Action Figure

Library Room 213 - hosted by Georgina Ardalan

Come design a self-portrait action figure! Using thinking routines, create an action figure that illustrates your educator self. Participants will walk away armed with an action figure to remind them of their intentions for the upcoming academic year.

Creating Quiet Moments

Room 316 - hosted by Grace Bogosian Davin

Feeling the need to slow down and welcome some quiet reflection? Unwind in this calming arts happening and reconnect to your why for being in education. We'll begin with guided meditation using visual art, then create with intentional materials that foster process thinking. Leave feeling grounded, refreshed, and creatively recharged.