Philadelphia Military Academy

Neighborhood: North Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Military Academy at Elverson is a public high school that draws students from across the city. It is noteworthy for its military structured learning environment that challenges students through rigorous college preparatory classes, student government and JROTC Leadership.

Fall 2019
Classroom Teacher: Cory Perewiznyk
Teaching-Artist: Rebecca Gilbert

The residencies at Philadelphia Military Academy focused on themes associated with The Politics of Rhetoric – in this case, the use of voice and the idea of the archive. Students were prompted to pair one word with one hand-drawn symbol to create conceptual and expressive self-portraits that represented their personalities, instead of representing what they look like. Students learned about positive and negative space as they drew stencils by hand. They became acquainted with screenprinting, cutting stencils, mixing ink and signing and editioning prints. Emphasis was placed on conceiving an idea, finding and then using their personal voice, and working both independently and with a team. Each student produced their own edition of screenprints large enough to share with each of their classmates, which they used for a portfolio swap: trading them so that each student had one of every print. These were then bound into books.