Students Win Scholarships In Art Contest Focusing On Slavery In New York

‘Pretends To Be Free' Reception Is Tuesday, Feb. 26, At Philipsburg Manor

SLEEPY HOLLOW, NY (Feb. 14, 2008) - Three Ossining High School students won prizes for their creative work on display at Philipsburg Manor's Pretends to be Free: Imagining Runaway Slaves exhibition, in which high school students create artwork based on actual 18^th-century runaway slave advertisements published in New York newspapers.

Judges awarded first prize, a $1,000 scholarship, to Sisi Li for her work "Night Escape," based on an advertisement about a female runaway slave.

"I am really proud of this particular artwork because I believed that Nell [the subject of the advertisement] was an amazing woman for daring to escape the cruel chains of slavery," said Sisi. "Many of the ads that I read were about male slaves escaping, and only a couple about women. No one ever mentions whether Nell managed to be free or if she got caught and forced back into slavery, but I painted the picture with hope that she had escaped."

Judges awarded second prize, a $500 scholarship, to Lia Rothschild, for her work, "Almost Alone;" and a third prize, a $100 gift certificate to an art supply store, to Gus Boehling for his work, "Reflection."

An opening reception that will showcase all of the works will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 6:30 p.m. at Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow. Light food and beverages will be served. The exhibition will be on display through May 4. Philipsburg Manor is open from 10-5 on weekends in March, and from 10-5 daily except Tuesdays beginning in April.

Judges were Michael Natiello, an artist who is Historic Hudson Valley's creative director of The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze, and Simone Dewey, a curator and former art gallery owner. More than 20 students entered.

"Pretends to Be Free was designed to encourage high school students to engage with powerful historical documents in a personal and creative manner," said Thom Thacker, site director of Philipsburg Manor.

After reading an introductory essay and a number of runaway slave advertisements taken from local colonial era newspapers, students selected one advertisement to provide inspiration for artworks that interpreted the decisions, dangers, and defiance of those individuals who chose to run away from their owners. The students also wrote statements to accompany their works. 

The highly descriptive runaway advertisements that formed the basis for the contest are a significant source for understanding the culture, skills, languages, and appearance of enslaved individuals, as well as evidence of their ongoing resistance. At the same time, the oftentimes-insulting descriptions and language used in the advertisements provide painful insights into the nature of the slave owners who wrote them.

Pretends to Be Free is a project that encourages students to responsibly imagine and visually represent those people whose stories survive somewhere between the lines of the advertisements.

Support for Pretends to Be Free was provided, in part, by The Wachovia Foundation, the Allan M. Block Agency, Inc., and the Rotary Club of the Tarrytowns.

Philipsburg Manor continues to attract national attention for its new interpretive focus on the little-known story of slavery in the north during the colonial period. The site's tours and programs reflect the daily lives of the 23 enslaved individuals known to have lived and labored there. Philipsburg Manor is the country's only fully staffed living history museum to focus on the history of northern slavery. Philipsburg Manor, a museum of Historic Hudson Valley, is at 381 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow. For information: 914-631-3992, www.hudsonvalley.org.

Historic Hudson Valley is a network of six historic sites in Sleepy Hollow Country and the Great Estates region; Washington Irving's Sunnyside; Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate, a historic site of the National Trust; Philipsburg Manor; the Union Church of Pocantico Hills; Van Cortlandt Manor; and Montgomery Place Historic Estate.