Kelly Writers House hosted an exhibit celebrating stories of friendship and community.
Credit: Sanjana JuvvadiThe Kelly Writers House launched the last Brodsky Gallery exhibit of the semester featuring art created by Penn students that highlights stories of friendship and community.
An audience of students, faculty, and community members gathered last Thursday for a poetry reading and reception inside the Brodsky Gallery, which is the Kelly Writers House's dedicated space for programming related to the visual and literary arts. The exhibit, titled "How to Fight Loneliness," centers around themes of love and solitude and was curated by College senior Lila Shermeta.
The multimedia gallery features paintings in watercolor and oil, photography, and a linoleum print — all created by Penn students. The pieces are currently located on the first floor of the Kelly Writers House, which hosts various events and welcomes community members to create, collaborate, and share their work.
Shermeta emphasized the warmth of the Kelly Writers House as a venue.
“Penn’s facilities and the opportunities they hold can be very gate-kept,” she said. “But the Writer’s House is just not a place like that.”
Each piece featured in the gallery was selected from an open submission call to students at Penn and other colleges in the Philadelphia area.
Wharton senior Tina Zhang — whose photography is featured in the exhibit — said that this is the first time her art has been displayed in a gallery setting. Four of Zhang’s photographs, each featuring her friends in different spaces and interactions, are displayed in the exhibit.
“How does an empty room become a home?” Zhang asked in an interview with the DP. “It's always people inside of it.”
College junior and KWH program assistant Alexis Bartee similarly noted the welcoming nature of the gallery, along with the diverse crowds it draws.
“The Brodsky Gallery is really cool because it’s a way for all these different types of artists to show themselves and their work to a whole host of people, whether that's students on campus or Philadelphia community members,” Bartee said.
The gallery reception featured selections from Bartee’s poetry, which was inspired by cycles of friendship and people who had both come into and left her life. Other poems read during the reception included excerpts from readers’ creative writing theses.
"How to Fight Loneliness" is a continuation of a series of exhibits at the Brodsky Gallery. In 2024, Shermeta organized a collection of photographs of nonhuman subjects, such as rural and urban landscapes, as part of a gallery titled "Outside Images."
The gallery spotlights selections from Bartee’s poetry, which was inspired by cycles of friendship and people who had both come into and left her life. According to Shermeta, the gallery was inspired by her experience approaching the end of her time as a student at Penn.
“The most important thing that happened to me in college is meeting my friends,” Shermeta said. “I wanted to create an ode to our time together before it ends.”
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