I Wish I Knew Who I Was Before I Was Me was commissioned by the Frye Art Museum to celebrate the Museum’s fifty-eight year-old commitment to community outreach and art education. The exhibition reflects the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration in Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History, and it places that exhibition in the context of the needs of our community in Seattle.

Curated by students working with Arts Corps teaching artists, poet Roberto Ascalon and musician/producer Amos Miller, I Wish I Knew Who I Was Before I Was Me offers unique insight into the Frye Collection as experienced by youth. Over the course of several months, students participated in the behind-the-scenes operations of the Museum, working together with Frye Museum staff and Ascalon and Miller to select objects from the Frye’s Permanent Collection and to determine an exhibition theme and title. Incorporating music, song, poetry, and spoken word, I Wish I Knew Who I Was Before I Was Me includes the students’ responses to the artwork they chose for the exhibition.