Last Saturday, students held “Arts, Words, and Voices: LA Fire Relief,” a workshop blending artistic expression with activism, raising awareness about the inequalities heightened by the Los Angeles wildfires. Organized by Elise Zhang ’26, Ethan Liu ’26, and Aglaia Hong ’27, the final exhibition is set to debut at Falls Hall on March 1, including student work, live performances, and a conversation with the CEO of the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation (LAEPF) Community Brigade.
According to Zhang, she and her fellow co-organizers identified a gap between awareness and action in wildfire relief efforts, believing there were not enough opportunities for direct support. In an effort to close the divide, they have been working towards the exhibition while providing students a meaningful opportunity to participate.
“Aglaia, Ethan, and I wanted to do something about it. We’ve seen a lot of awareness campaigns, but not enough direct action to help these communities. We wanted to lead that change and create a way for other students to get involved. Raising awareness is important, but so is supporting grassroots efforts like the LAEPF Community Brigade.” said Zhang.
In cooperation with several campus organizations, the founders have planned several workshops leading up to the final exhibition, such as the one this past weekend. In addition to student groups, Zhang mentioned their continued work with the visual arts and music departments to coordinate logistics and promotion.
“Leading up to the exhibition, we have four workshops scheduled. We just finished the climate equity workshop in collaboration with the PASC. Next week, we’re hosting the social equity workshop with Asian Women Empowerment. We’re also organizing an economic equity workshop in collaboration with the Philanthropy and Investment Club. We’ve reached out to many campus groups to help advertise and contribute through workshops. We’ve been in communication with the music and visual arts departments to determine the best way to organize the event.” said Zhang
This exhibition is not just for show; student-organizers aim to use art to communicate an important message of equity. Ethan Liu discussed the importance of the topic, as well as plans to feature student work.
”The theme of our event is equity. There are different types of equity like social equity, economic equity, and environmental equity. By that, I mean the injustices that happen, and through these clubs we will touch on each of these and then see how we can help people who are interested in this event take their art and then connect,” said Liu.
According to Liu, these workshops are just the beginning. The trio has worked tirelessly to gather works from all over campus to be featured at the final show, with the hopes of bringing together visual and performing arts to demonstrate the communities’ contributions to activism.
”In my time here at Andover, I’ve rarely seen collaboration between the different art forms in the sense that we’ve had writing, visual arts, and the performing arts all come together in one event for one cause. I think that’s very powerful if it goes smoothly because it [shows] the collective power we have as an Andover community,” said Liu.
