Trinity’s Widener Gallery Hosts First Fully Student-Curated Art Exhibition

Open through April 3, 2026, at the Widener Gallery in Trinity College’s Austin Arts Center, Reshaping Tradition: Contemporary Explorations in East Asian Art is the gallery’s first fully student-curated art exhibition.

Students in the fall 2025 course, “Art History 205: East Asian Art, Now to 1850,” taught by Associate Professor of Fine Arts Michael J. Hatch, worked collaboratively to produce the show. A full-color catalogue—which was designed and written by students and includes essays and artist interviews—accompanies the exhibition.

A reception celebrating the exhibition’s opening will be held on Thursday, February 5, at 4:00 p.m., when some of the students will be viewing the results of their semester-long project for the first time.

Lisa Lynch, the gallery director and organizing curator of the Widener Gallery, helped to guide the students through the planning process and provided feedback along the way. “There has been a history of student involvement in exhibitions in the gallery, but this is the first time students have been fully involved in selecting artists for the show, refining the theme, selecting the individual works of art, interviewing the artists, writing catalogue content, and laying out the show,” Lynch said. “They really did it all, and it’s been a wonderful experience working with them.”

The student curators learned how much careful thought goes into planning an exhibition. Maya Sasaki-George ’28 said, “I never really considered the fact that curators are thinking about how pieces are looking on opposite walls, or diagonally, or at different angles in the gallery. … It definitely made me appreciate and want to think more about how these pieces are put together in a gallery, because everything single thing in here is very intentional.”

Hatch said that he wanted this project to build strong collaboration among the students and also with other members of the Trinity community who are involved in bringing an exhibition to life, including the gallery staff and Studio Arts faculty. “It’s absolutely necessary to understand how to work together with collaborators and colleagues,” he said.

In addition, Hatch wanted to expose students to some practical applications of art and art history. “I think it’s important that students think about a major like art history beyond just the classroom experience, to imagine how it is that they might take what they’re learning in the classroom and apply it to a real-world scenario,” he said. Many skills practiced during this project—including drafting and presenting ideas and written materials—carry over to a variety of professional fields, Hatch said.

Lynch added, “I hope that this experience will give some of the students an interest in learning more about the practical applications of an art history degree and what they might do professionally beyond college.”

The students presented their selected artists and artwork, along with a proposed layout, to the gallery’s exhibitions committee at the end of the fall semester; the exhibition was hung in the gallery in January. “I’m really excited for all the students in the class to see the results,” Hatch said. “I think they’ll all be incredibly impressed by their own work.”

The exhibition brings together work by five contemporary artists—Arnold Chang, Michael Cherney, Fung Ming Chip, Brandon Sadler, and Zhang Xiaoli—who reimagine the classical mediums of East Asian art through diverse, global perspectives. The exhibited work includes painting, photography, calligraphy, ceramics, and graffiti.

The class members who curated the exhibition are: Emma Almoney ’27, Lex Anagnos ’28, Kate Barton ’28, Margaret Boeschenstein ’26, Alexander Casella ’27, Morgan Clapp ’26, Jack Doehring ’29, Lucy Dorion ’26, Hanley Ferrucci ’26, Ava Foley ’26, Sage Gould ’27, Gwen Longo ’27, Bailey McQuaid ’27, Jade Mellitz ’27, Annabelle Pappas ’26, Jen Roque ’28, Sophia SanGiovanni ’28, Maya Sasaki-George ’28, and Cord Vallis ’28.

Reshaping Tradition: Contemporary Explorations in East Asian Art runs from January 26 through April 3, 2026, at the Widener Gallery in Trinity College’s Austin Arts Center. A reception will be held on Thursday, February 5, at 4:00 p.m. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (closed February 19-20 and March 16-20). The exhibition is free and open to the public.