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Every year several seniors spend their final weeks at The Putney School diving deeply into projects known as Senior Exhibitions
Similar to Marlboro College's Senior Plan of Concentration (but shorter by a couple of semesters), Putney's senior exhibition option requires students to drop two classes when they return from March break and devote that time to chasing down the details of their more personal pursuits. Each exhibition is scrutinized and approved by the Educational Program Committee well in advance of the start date. The topics are often a melding of art, science, literature, math and so on. An adult mentor (or more, if off-campus talent is required) is assigned and an outside evaluator comes to critique the final product and/or performance. (See a full list of Senior Exhibition titles here.)
In this year's crop, Sean Brewer had a vision of representing the epic of Gilgamesh in a single illustration spanning 60 feet. Though not as seamless as he would have liked, he succeeded in making his dream of merging historical literature and drawing a reality. And he presented the work with the help of some friends who provided a background of chanting and drumming between verses read by Sean. You can get a feel for it from this photo gallery: Epic of Gilgamesh.
Rachel Axtell has been involved in tech theater throughout her Putney career, so exploring the physics of stage lighting was an obvious pick for her. Her presentation was part over-the-top music-and-light show and part learning lab. You can see some of her presentation and slides here: Physics and Art of Stage Lighting
Olivia Hooper didn't come to The Putney School with any fencing skills, but her afternoon and evening activity schedule found more and more room for Renaissance style fencing as time went on, so her exhibition choice also became obvious as the time approached. Besides collecting her fair share of "nickel-sized bruises," Olivia penned and illustrated what amounts to a text book on Renaissance fencing. Here are a couple of pages from that, plus some combat action shots from her presentation: Why Nickel-sized Bruises are Awesome: Study of Renaissance Fencing
Doing a Senior Exhibition isn't for everyone, but as you can see from the list of titles and participants, many seniors take advantage of the opportunity. We leave you now with a glimpse of some of the others: Senior Exhibitions 2008.